The Oracle
by Toria.Writes
Summary: What if Captain Marvel wasn't the only secret Nick Fury had kept from the world? In 2001, Nick Fury encounters a girl with an extraordinary power to see the future. Now the threat of Thanos looms closer, maybe Rachel James is the only one with the power to stop him. INFINITY WAR ONWARDS - SPOILERS.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** What if Captain Marvel wasn't the only secret Nick Fury had kept from the world? In 2001, Nick Fury encounters a girl with an extraordinary power to see the future. Now the threat of Thanos looms closer, maybe Rachel James is the only one with the power to stop it.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Everything, apart from my OC, belongs to Marvel.

**Author's Note: **Welcome and I hope you enjoy!

**Chapter One**

-:-

**2001**

Columbus, Ohio

-:-

In their home in Ohio, Susan James sat worriedly on the couch in their sitting room, cradling a cup of steaming hot coffee. In front of her, her husband Gregory James paced before the fireplace—every five minutes, his pacing would pause, he would approach the window and peer through the drawn curtains. The clock above the mantelpiece read midnight.

It was a dark, wintery night—the remains of the recent snowfall still lingered on the grounds, roofs and treetops across the city—and the sleeping street was silent bar the occasional sound of a distant car or train that passed through.

"Whoever it is, I don't think they're coming," Susan murmured, finally breaking the silence that had surrounded them for the past thirty minutes, as she watched her husband resume his regimental pacing in front of the fireplace.

Dark circles painted under her eyes, and sickly pale hues to her skin, were from the many restless nights they had endured over the years. Despite only being in her mid-thirties, Susan looked years older than her true age; the first grey appeared unnoticed by Susan, on her thirty-first birthday—a whole year after their daughter's birth—but as her daughter grew, the grey hairs continued to appear, along with new wrinkles and worry lines, still unnoticed by Susan. The wear that the past years had taken an evident toll to Susan James, worries voiced to her by her sister and brother—but those worries went ignored. Her siblings didn't know the whole truth—how could they possibly understand the turmoil that had engulfed the past six years of their life.

"They're coming." Gregory James responded, tone firm and short. Much like his wife, time had equally not been as kind to him. His once thick head of brown hair, had thinned and greyed on the top of his head, and the once fit-physique had now whittled away over time. "Malcolm said they could help, and that they'd know what to do."

Susan dropped her head, trying not to let her frustrations get ahead of her. After years of arguments and lashes of pent up emotions, Susan knew this wasn't the right time to pick a fight. "So who… or _what _are they?" Susan didn't fully understand the visitors they were currently expecting; her husband had only explained one evening, after hurrying home from work, to express the excitement that he had found someone who might be able to help—and at the time, that was all Susan wanted to hear.

Gregory paused his pacing, tugging a hand through his thinning hair, a nervous or stressed habit that he had adopted more over the past few years. "Malcolm said… they are some kind of federation—I don't exactly know what to call them. Like the FBI, but not. Malcolm… Malcolm he said they deal with _this _kind of thing a lot and that they would know what to do. He worked for them for six years and still has ways to get in touch with the right people."

Susan swallowed and nodded slowly. "But what if they see her and... they take her away from us?" staring up at her husband, her green eyes wide in fear.

Gregory opened his mouth but words failed him. "T-they can't…"—Gregory let out a huff of aggravation—"Susan… they are our last hope."—Gregory was interrupted by the tapping of two knocks on the front door. Gregory and Susan both froze in their spot. Susan's grip on her mug of coffee visibly tightened—"They're here." Gregory breathed to himself, aloud. "They're here." Gregory repeated, louder this time, unfreezing his spot and headed to their front door.

Susan slowly stood from the couch, placing the mug on the coffee table, and nervously straightened her creased shirt.

Gregory glanced back at Susan once, both of their faces pale with worry, before he opened the door. Two men stood on the other side. The first man, was medium height—perhaps similar height and age to Gregory, with a somewhat-kind face; the second man was tall, dark-skinned—but the most interesting and noticeable feature was the black eye-patch covering his left eye.

"Mr. James?" the smaller of the two men asked. Gregory nodded. "My name is Agent Phil Coulson, and this is my boss, Nick Fury. I believe you were expecting us."

Gregory pulled the door and stepped to the side. "Yes, yes, please come in." he hastily gestured for the two men to step inside.

"You have a lovely home." The agent spoke, as they stepped inside, casting his eyes around the room, before landing on Susan who looked unsure how to stand or move. "You must be Mrs. James?" the woman nodded. "I apologize for the lateness of our call-in. We figured that we ought to keep this visit low key."

"That's quite alright." Susan spoke, nervously, eyes casting back and forth between the two suit-donned men and her husband. "May I get you anything to drink—tea? Coffee?"

"A coffee would be lovely, thank you." Agent Coulson responded.

Nick Fury—whom had been stiffly moving his singular eye around the room—finally turned his attention to the woman. "Nothing for me, thank you." he responded, his tone cool and unwavered.

Susan quietly shuffled into the kitchen, with one last fleeting glance in her husband's direction before she disappeared. As the sound of a kettle and clatter of mugs echoed from the kitchen, Gregory gestured for the two men to sit. Agent Coulson placed himself on one of the armchairs, whilst Fury remained standing.

"We are so pleased you came," Gregory placed himself awkwardly on the edge of the couch. "We had no idea who to turn to. Our daughter . . ." Gregory trailed off, shutting his eyes and rubbed a hand across his stubbled cheek. "We hired a private investigator—just a contact through a contact. Said he used to work for... yourselves. He said you work with situations like this—said you'd be able to help." His gaze flashed between the two men, a look of desperate hope in his eyes.

By this point, Susan had returned to the room and was placing a steaming hot cup of coffee in front of Agent Coulson.

Agent Coulson smiled and quietly thanked the woman, who returned to sit at her husband's side at the couch. "Why don't you start by telling us about your daughter?" Gregory and Susan shared a look of hesitation. "What is her name? How old is she?" Agent Coulson prompted.

"Her name is Rachel Lily James." Gregory responded. "She's only six." His hand grasped his wife's silently as she let out a distinctive sniff. "Born June 12th 1995. That's her." Agent Coulson turned in his armchair to see Nick Fury—during their conversation—had been inspecting the large array of photographs on the mantelpiece, and was now holding a framed picture of a young girl. The said young girl had a head of brown curls, large expressive green eyes—undoubtedly inherited from her mother. In her photograph, she was smiling at the camera, her two front teeth missing. To anyone, the young girl appeared a picture of health.

"She's a beautiful child." Agent Coulson commented.

Susan smiled through her tears. "Thank you. My older sister often says she's pageant-material. Not that she would want to go through with them, even if she wanted to—she always preferred playing outside, getting filthy, than wearing pretty dresses and playing with dolls." Susan rattled, the pride she has for her daughter evidently running across her face.

Gregory nodded through his own wet smile. "We're outdoors people - hiking, fishing, camping trips, you name it. Rachel loves it. She is the perfect daughter for us." The hold on the couple tightened, each other keeping the other from falling apart from where they sat.

"But she's different from other children?" Nick Fury finally spoke for the first time. The couple nervously nodded. "How so?"

Gregory inhaled and exhaled loudly. "From as long as we can remember, she has suffered with night terrors—ones that would have her waking up screaming every night." Gregory shook his head. "We've had to move so many times because the neighbors used to complain about the noise. Some would call the cops on us—thought we were abusing our own child, which is sick." Gregory spat with venom. "We tried going to doctors—they prescribed her medicines to help her sleep."

"And did they work?" Agent Coulson asked.

Gregory sighed. "Sometimes, if they were strong enough. But they would affect how she was throughout the day. She could barely stay awake, she wasn't herself anymore. We couldn't take her to school without the teacher calling up to say she had fallen asleep in class and they couldn't wake her up."

"She wasn't a person anymore. She was just existing." Susan sniffed. "She wouldn't laugh or smile. She would wake up, eat and then go to sleep again."

"And these night-terrors—what were they of?" said Coulson.

Gregory and Susan exchanged another look of apprehension.

"We won't be able to help you if you are not completely honest with us, Mr and Mrs James." Fury commented firmly.

Gregory nodded, shaking his head to himself. "Yes, of course. Rachel… sees things. When she sleeps, she gets… visions."

"Visions? Can you elaborate on that, Mr James?" Coulson responded.

"Gregory, please." Gregory waved a hand at the agent. "And, well, it's hard to explain." Gregory tugged at his hair frustratingly. "We dismissed them at first, thinking they were just coincidences, but then . . ."

Susan squeezed her husband's knee in comfort. "The visions we have come to believe are visions of the future."

Coulson and Fury shared a fleeting glance. "The future?" Fury repeated, a look of disbelief on his face.

"Yes," Susan breathed. "It sounds crazy—believe us, _we know._" Susan chuckled dryly and little humour. "First, it was little things—how she would recount how we did the _exact _same things we did in her dreams; go to the park, see her grandparents, watch a film at the movies…" Susan trailed off, pausing for a moment as she glanced at the two agents carefully. "We would shrug it off at first, thought that maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe she just overheard the plans we were making when we thought she wasn't around. But then, after she turned six, bigger things happened."

"Bigger things? What do you mean by bigger things?"

"After one particular dream she had, she said she was going to break her arm. She was _adamant_ that she wouldn't go to the park that day. But, I ignored her and low and behold, she ends up in the ER being placed into a cast." Susan wiped a tear from her eye. "She was in a cast for six months because I didn't listen to her." Susan sniffed. "And then in August, it happened again. Only this time, her _visions _were harder to ignore. I had picked Rachel up from school, and she was quiet—quieter than normal—and then she tells me…"—Susan inhaled a shaky breath—"…that I should call my mother—her grandmother—because something is wrong. And then when we got home, I got the call." Susan wiped her eyes. "She had had a stroke suddenly. She was talking and laughing one minute, and having a stroke the next. It was unpredictable—the doctors weren't entirely sure what did it. Only that it had killed her. How could my six year old daughter possibly know her grandmother was going to die that day?"

"That must have been very disturbing for you. I am sorry for your loss."

Sarah nodded. "Thank you."

"And these visions, do they only revolve around her life?"

Gregory shook his head. "No." he responded, pulling himself to his feet and walked across the room, returning with a handful of drawings which he handed to Coulson. "These are some drawings she did—of some of the things she sees."

Fury moved across the room, peering down over Coulson's shoulder at the drawings in his hands; the drawings were very obviously done by a child, but nonetheless it was still clear what each drawing was depicting. "Stop," Fury said. Coulson paused flicking through each drawing, pausing on the one Fury had noticed. "Holy shit." He muttered.

"What?" Coulson stared at the drawing of two towers, burning in flashes of red and orange. "Jesus . . . is this what I think this is?" Coulson asked the couple.

Gregory nodded numbly. "She drew this a week before the Twin Towers burnt down." He pointed to the date at the bottom of the drawing. "We always date and file away every drawing she does. Just in-case we ever needed them for some reason." Gregory uncomfortably crossed his arms over his chest. "We had no idea what buildings she was drawing until the day we saw the Twin Towers fall on the TV three months ago."

"Your daughter predicted the biggest terror attack our country has ever faced, a week before it even happened?" said Fury.

"Yes." Gregory responded. "Can you see why we need your help now?"

"Yes," Coulson responded, putting the drawing of the 9/11 down and looking at the next drawing, trying to ignore the chill that had entered the room. "Who is this?" Coulson gestured to the figure in red and yellow in the next drawing.

Susan looked at the figure. "We have no idea. She calls him Iron Man. We think those are just one of the characters she has made up—there are more if you keep looking through. Captain America is one—you know the one from the Second World War? I blame my grandfather for introducing her to that one."

Coulson grinned as he looked at the next image of Captain America—blue, red and white shield the same as the one on his vintage playing cards.

"There's also the Hulk—a giant green monster, that she _swears _is the good guy despite the fact everyone fears him. And then there's, Oh—honey what are their names?" Susan huffed in frustration, clicking her fingers as she attempted to remember. "Hawk… Hawk…"

"Hawkeye?" Coulson responded.

"That's the one!" Susan responded in glee. "Hawkeye and Black Widow." She noticed the way the two agents exchanged a look between each other. "Wait—you aren't saying these characters are real are you?"

Fury answered quickly. "No." as Coulson diverted the subject moments later; "Do these visions only come in Rachel's dreams?"

"No," Susan shook her head. "They did at first, but sometimes, I'm not too sure—there are times were her eyes glaze over and she's unresponsive for several minutes, then she's snapped out of it and acting as if nothing has ever happened." Susan nervously tugged at the sleeves of her cardigan. "Do you think there is something you can do for her? Please tell me you can help her."

"I don't know." Fury answered honestly. "Your daughter would be the only one we have encountered with her… abilities. We would need to examine her and find a way to understand what makes these visions occur."

Susan grasped her husbands arm. "Examine? You mean experiment on her?" a flash of fear flashed over her eyes. "You _will not _be experimenting on our daughter. She is only six years old!"

"Honey…" Gregory moved to comfort her wife. "Maybe we should listen to what they have to say…"

Susan turned to look at her husband in disbelief. "So you think it's perfectly acceptable to let these _strangers _take _our daughter _away and experiment on her like a lab rat?"

"No, of course not, but…"-

"Mommy? Daddy?" a small voice spoke, interrupting the two adults. The four adults turned to see the young girl in question standing a few feet from them, donning her nightgown and a fluffy bear clutched to her stomach. "Why are you fighting again?"

"Rachel," Susan quickly rushed to her daughter's side, pulling her into her arms. "What are you doing out of bed, honey?" Susan asked the young girl, running a hand through her brown curls.

"I had a bad dream." Rachel mumbled into her mother's neck. "Aliens were falling from the sky and killing people."

Susan hushed her daughter. "You're safe, sweetie, there's no aliens falling from the sky."

"Not right now there isn't." Rachel said. "But it's OK—Iron Man, Captain America, and the others were there to save the day."

Susan squeezed her daughter. "See? Nothing to worry about then."

The mother and daughter embraced for a moment, before pulling away. Rachel's large green eyes finally landing on the two agents in the room. Rachel squeezed her bear tighter to her chest, and moved to hide behind her mother's legs.

"Hello," Coulson said softly, slowly approaching the young girl behind her mother's legs. "My name is Phil Coulson and this is Nick Fury. Your parents asked to meet us. They were telling us such wonderful things about you. They were showing us your amazing drawings. Do you like to draw?"

The little girl, that was now peeking out from behind her mother's legs to look at Coulson shyly, and nodded slowly before her eyes slowly moved to stare past Coulson—her childish gaze resting on Nick Fury, whom returned her gaze with a hard, expressionless stare. There were several moments of silence and Rachel's gaze remained trained on the man with the one eye.

"Sweetie?" Gregory walked to her daughter's side, crouching down beside her. "Do you know this man?" Rachel gave a small nod in response. The adults all shared a look. "Do you know this man from your dreams?" Rachel answered with another nod.

-:-

**2018**

Seattle, Washington

_(After the events of Civil War, at the beginning of Infinity War)_

-:-

It was raining in Seattle which made it a normal day for Rachel James. The clock behind the coffee counter struck noon and Rachel worked tirelessly, creating her umpteenth number of coffee that day. Making coffee for living wasn't exactly the funniest job in the world, but it provided her enough income to rent an apartment in the city with her best friend Blaire, and allowed her the time to study for her PhD in Art Therapy. And on a good day, the tips were alright, which gave her the extra cash in her pocket to life luxuries that she wouldn't usually entertain on her minimal wage income.

"Skinny Latte for Lisa," Rachel said, passing the cup to a suit-donned woman, who looked up from her phone wordlessly accepting the cup without a thanks and disappeared from the crowd. Rachel tried her best not to roll her eyes—she was used to the non-pleasantries of the city after three years of living there—and turned to make her next order, frothing up the metal jug of milk, listening to the loud whirl of the machine grounding the coffee together. The sound was deafening when Rachel first started working at the independent coffee shop, but after the years, Rachel had become attuned to it.

Much similarly to before, Rachel returned to the counter announcing, steaming cup in hand; "Cappuccino for Logan?" Rachel watched as man reached forward, grasping the cup from her hand, with a small smile and a 'thanks'. Rachel smiled, however as the man's grasped the cup from hers, she felt his fingertips brush against hers. Rachel sucked in a sharp inhale of breath as suddenly her surroundings glazed over and flashes of images came before her eyes—the same man, Logan, standing in a delivery room as his partner gave birth to a baby boy. And as soon as image appeared, it disappeared as the cup disappeared from her hands. Rachel blinked and watched as her surroundings returned to her. She was once again back in the coffee shop and the man—completely oblivious—was turning to leave. "Have a good day, sir."

The man nodded and waved before disappearing out the door, into the busy crowds. Rachel sighed and turned back to her coffee machine once more, reading her next order, as if nothing had ever happened.

Over the course of her life, while the visions never went away—and if anything her power progressed over time—her ability to hide her reactions had improved over time. Working in an environment where you can be accidentally touched by anyone made it necessary for her to find a way to hide her reactions. Whether it was as simple as the brush of a hand, whenever someone was to touch Rachel, she would see what was to come in their lives. The longer the touch lasted, the further Rachel could see into their future—from the day they met the person they will marry to the day they die.

Overtime, Rachel had become immune to seeing what was to come of a stranger's life, but there was the occasional exception where it would be too much to bare—to look in the person's eye as she passed them their drink, knowing at some point in the near future, something tragic was going to happen to their lives. There were some days that all Rachel could do was curl up in her bad at the end of the day and let the tears fall until there were no more tears left to cry. Other days, she found ways to outlet her emotions—usually through art; whether it was painting or drawing. Even from a little girl, Rachel used her art to express her inner demons—whether it was visions of what was to come, or simply the emotions she felt within. Art brought her freedom, expression and hopefulness when life failed her or others around her.

"So, I'm thinking of getting lip fillers - what do you think?" her close work friend, Lucas, appeared by her side, flipping his long platinum blonde sweeping fringe from his face. Somehow, despite working in front of a steaming coffee machine all day, Lucas' makeup managed to look flawless. Rachel gave up after the first two months when she would repeatedly come home with mascara streaking down her face.

Rachel blinked and looked at her friend, eyebrow raised. "You're kidding."

"I am not." Lucas shook his head. "Just a small lift, y'know? Give them boys something to think about."

Rachel shook her head and chuckled. "You don't need them, Lucas. You'll get it once and then you'll get addicted and turn out looking like Jocelyn Wildenstein."

"I know but guys always like fat lips when you're going down…"-

-"Ew, please don't finish that sentence."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Prude."

"Slut." Rachel retorted.

Lucas flashed a pearly-white grin and blew her a kiss before the two of them were swallowed into the busyness of the crowds once more. Rachel was grateful to have Lucas as a friend; when it wasn't Blaire, Lucas was usually the one pushing her to be more social. If it weren't for Blaire or Lucas, she would spend most of her weekends holed up in her room studying or painting. Going out for drinks wasn't exactly what Rachel called fun—the chance of accidentally brushing against someone's skin on a dance-floor or at a crowded bar was bound to happen—but on the nights were it was going out for meals, going to the movies, or mani-pedis, Rachel was glad to have two extraverted friends.

As the hours ticked on, the lunchtime rush didn't calm down until an hour before Rachel's shift ended. By that time, Lucas had clocked off and hurried home to get ready for his Tinder date, and someone else had clocked on, which meant the last hour went by quietly. At the end of her shift, Rachel shoved on her khaki raincoat, picked up her belongings and clocked out. Rain hadn't stopped since noon, which meant when Rachel stepped outside the coffee shop since 7am that morning the streets were damp and filled with puddles. Rachel slipped her hood over her head and made her way home.

Luckily Rachel only lived a twenty minute walk from the coffee shop, which meant when she returned to her apartment, she was only marginally soaked. Blaire glanced at her from her spot on the couch, laptop on lap, as Rachel shrugged off her coat and added it to the other coats on the row of hooks. "Hey Oracle," Blaire perkily said from her spot on the couch.

Rachel rolled her eyes. Blaire was one of the few people in her life that new the truth of her powers. After knowing each other for over 10 years, Rachel had told Blaire the truth four years ago, when they first moved into a dorm together at college. Rachel knew there was no way she could keep the visions that wake her up at night a secret, thus made the decision to tell Blaire everything. Blaire liked to joke from time to time that she was a superhero—which Rachel denied doubtlessly—and gave her the nickname Oracle.

"Hey" Rachel flopped on the end of the sofa that Blaire wasn't sitting. Like Rachel, Blaire worked shifts at a local Italian restaurant, whilst she continued to study her events planning course on the side.

An hour passed as Rachel and Blaire chatted about everything and anything, before Blaire headed out for work. After Blaire had left, Rachel made herself dinner and headed to her room where she changed out of her work-wear and into a comfy pair of sweats and jumper. She curled herself up in her bed, switched on her laptop and began to load up Netflix and eating her dinner. Before long, Rachel began to feel her eyes droop and her body become heavy. Putting her half-touched food on her bedside table, Rachel lay her head down on the pillow and began to drift into a sleep, to the sound of Suits playing in the background.

…

_Rachel was at work. It was a normal day. She was dressed in her usual white tee, jeans and green apron and baseball cap, and was working behind the counter serving. Lucas was on shift, making and distributing coffees as the line queued back to the door. Rachel accepted the change from the customer standing at the till and rang through her order. It was as the next customer approached the till that something strange began to happen. _

"_Noah?" a woman shouted from somewhere in the shop. Rachel looked over the crowd to see a woman frantically looking around the room and underneath tables. "Noah—where are you? Where've you gone?" Rachel looked back to see Lucas looking over also, like many others in the store. He caught her eye but then shrugged his shoulder, returning to his work. "Sweetie? Noah?" the woman shouted. _

_Rachel turned to the customer, excusing herself and approached the woman. "Excuse me, Miss—is something wrong?"_

_The woman frantically turned to look at her. "My s-son. H-He's just disappeared. One minute he was there, the next he wasn't."_

_Rachel reached forward to comfort the woman without touching her skin. "I'm sure he's here somewhere. I'll help you look."_

_However, as the woman went to speak, another voice spoke from nearby. "D-Dad?"_

_Rachel looked around to the girl that had spoke. She looked no older than fifteen. She was sitting at the table by the window with what appeared to be her father. However, something was wrong; Rachel's eyes widened as she stared at the middle-aged man who appeared to be _turning into dust_ before her very eyes. People around them gasped and the young girl began to scream as the man crumbled into dust and began to float into the air. _

"_T-that's wh-what happened to Noah!" the mother beside Rachel cried. _

_No sooner than that, the chaos began. Other screams and shouts echoed around the room. Rachel watched as people began to disintegrate into dust within seconds; those that didn't desperately attempted to grasp hold of their loved ones or the ones surrounding them in desperation and fear. Rachel was frozen, knowing there was nothing she could do, but watch as the people disappeared one after the other rapidly. _

"_Rachel!" _

_Rachel turned her head to the counter, Lucas was stumbling out from behind the counter. _

"_Lucas!" Rachel reached for her friend's hand with her own, but as her hand went to wrap around his, she felt only air. "Lucas, no!" she screamed, as Lucas began to crumble. Seconds later, the only remnants left of her friend was the dust that floated through the air. "Lucas," Rachel wept, screams still echoing around her.. In the distance nearby, Rachel could hear a load crash. She looked out of the coffee shop's window to see a car had crashed into a lamp-post, but there was no-one behind the wheel. _

_Rachel gasped as she saw people crying and screaming in the streets, dust seeping upwards into the air. As Rachel looked up at the skyscraper sky, she saw a dark cloud of dust hanging over the city. _

_Rachel opened her mouth and screamed. _

…

"Rachel!"

Rachel snapped her eyes open, vividly aware of the hands that gently grasped her shoulders, stopping her from jumping up from her lying position. Panting, Rachel's eyes darted around her, letting her surroundings sink in; standing over her, was the worried face of Blaire—dressed in her waitressing uniform—and behind her, Rachel could recognise the familiarities of her bedroom. Rachel exhaled and inhaled heavily, attempting to calm her rapidly beating heart, realizing (much to her relief) she was back in the present.

"What happened? Are you OK?" Blaire frantically asked her, pulling away to let Rachel sit up in her bed.

Rachel wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. "I-I'm fine."

Blaire looked at her unbelievingly. "Was it another vision? What happened?" Rachel could see the panic in Blaire's eyes. Blaire understood that only a bad vision would come to her like this.

"I-I don't know," Rachel swallowed, her mouth dry. "I didn't understand it."

Blaire stared at her for a moment, her mouth opening and closing with questions, but eventually decided against asking them. "I'll get you some water." Rachel nodded and watched her friend disappear from the room. As soon as the door clicked shut, Rachel quickly rolled onto her stomach, reaching blindly underneath her bed. Her hand ran along the frame of her bed, until finally it hit a small object strapped to the bed. Yanking it from its confinements, Rachel pulled the small disposable phone into sight. Glancing at the door, listening for her friend's approaching footsteps but heard only distant sounds from the kitchen, Rachel quickly began to type a message.

-:-

**2018**

Atlanta, Georgia

-:-

Nick Fury was tired. Since the split of the Avengers, and the implementation of the Sokovia Accords, Nick Fury has found himself having more sleepless nights—and this happened to be one of those nights were Nick Fury sat in his leather chair, in his small studio apartment in Atlanta, nursing his glass of whisky watching the sun rise. Sleep evaded him long ago, so Fury had turned to another alternative—a 15 year old bottle of bourbon—to pass by the time until Agent Hill came knocking on his door for their next move.

Ever since the downfall of SHIELD in 2014, Fury had laid low, letting Agent Hill take the lead with the Avengers as he watched from the shadows. But, after the events in Germany, Agent Hill decided that she would step away from her role and return to her duties with Fury. For the most part, they had been keeping tabs on Steve Rodgers, Sam Wilson and the other fugitives Avengers—which took most of their efforts, but for the most part Agent Hill had managed to keep a rough tab on where they appear every fortnight, and keeping authorities off their back. Scott Lang and Clint had currently accepted the terms of their sentencing, and were currently under house-arrest. Meanwhile, Tony Stark, Rominoff and Vision continued to abide by the accords, free to roam at the free will providing they stuck to the laws of the accords, whilst Banner's location still remained unknown since 2015.

Fury sighed and took another sip of bourbon. In that moment, Fury heard a sound that made him freeze in his spot. Carefully pulling his phone from his pocket to look at the message he had received.

**From: **UNKNOWN

**Message: **SOS

* * *

**Author's Note: **So…erm…Hi! I hope you're excited for this story as I am. After the events of Endgame this story just popped in my head and I couldn't let it go! I don't have a particular paring planned for this story yet—but I do love a good Bucky/OC story. We'll see where the story takes us, shall we?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary:** What if Captain Marvel wasn't the only secret Nick Fury had kept from the world? In 2001, Nick Fury encounters a girl with an extraordinary power to see the future. Now, the threat of Thanos looms closer, maybe Rachel James is the only one with the power to stop it.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Everything, apart from my OC, belongs to Marvel.

**Author's Note: **Hi! Thank you to everyone that left a review, favourite'd & followed the story. Here's Chapter Two!

**Chapter Two **

-:-

**2018—some point in the nearby future**

Asgard, Space

-:-

_Her surroundings were foreign. She was standing in what appeared to be some sort of aircraft—metal grated flooring and walls that were wallpapered with a trillion wires and tubes that lead in all sorts of directions. _

_She wasn't alone—she was amongst a large cluster of humans. At least they looked human, only their attire didn't match the aesthetics that surrounded them—they were dressed in robes, Grecian-like dresses, with strong accents of gold, and most of their golden locks were braided in interesting designs. She was amongst adults, children and elderly alike, and as she looked down, she appeared to be matching their attire—dressed in a cream robe, her hair braided down one side of her shoulder. As she looked at their faces, there was one thing she could register consistently amongst them all: _fear. _People clasped one another in terror, whimpering and shaking, as they stared in front of them. _

_Rachel turned her eyes to follow the gaze of the crowds. A few yards ahead of them stood a familiar face from her other visions throughout her lifetime—and also splattered across the world's media in some shape or form—it was Thor. Only he looked different, _injured_. His once long blonde locks was now cropped short and thin lines shaved into the sides of his head. His body was splattered with blood—his own and others—and his right eye was missing, replaced with a black eye-patch. This was a Thor Rachel had never seen before in her visions, and before now, her visions had always been on Earth—this vision, however, was not. _

_A few yards from him to his right, stood his brother Loki. Unlike his brother, he did not appear any different from how she knew him—except perhaps the length of his black hair had now grown—adorning black and green armor. Between himself and his brother, Loki appeared the least unscathed—his cool green gaze as unwavering and calculated as ever. _

_The two brothers—that stood before cluster of people, that Alice now assumed to be Asgardians—stared before them. Rachel gasped as her eyes set sight on five _inhumanly _creatures; four of them were grotesque, donned in black and armor, armed with fierce weaponry—they remained still, but they were armed, poised and ready to attack when the order was sounded from their master. _

_Their said master stood at the console of the ship, staring out at the open void of space that surrounded them. From the back that faced them, Alice could see he was as big as the Hulk, yet his skin was purple—not green—and his torso was covered in heavy gold armor, that matched a gold gauntlet on his right hand. His hands had to be bigger than a wheel of a car, making Rachel wonder the amount of gold used to make the gauntlet. As Rachel inspected the gauntlet, she noticed something—a large purple gem that sat on the middle of the gauntlet. It glinted and gleamed in the dim light of the ship. _

"You must be Thanos," _Thor spoke, boldly without hesitation. "_Your reputation precedes you. Only, you're not quite as purple as I would have thought. More like a muted shade of lilac…" _Thor pondered and met with only silence. _"You know it is really quite rude to show up unannounced like this. As you can see, we are not exactly fit to be entertaining guests." _Thor gestured around him with a dry grin._

"Silence." _A deep voice sounded from the large purple and gold figure. The voice sent chills down Rachel's spine._

_The strange noseless creature to their master's left waved a long lithe hand and within moments, a shard of metal had wretched itself from the side of the ship and wrapped itself around Thor's mouth. _

_Asgardians gasped as they watched Thor fall to the ground, hands tugging at the metal that was clamped round his mouth, grunting sounds emitting from behind the metal, as he struggled in vain. _

"The Asgardians . . . once upon a time, you were the most feared race in the galaxy," _Thanos spoke smoothly. _"No-one would have dared to conquer Asgard. Yet now?" _Thanos waved a large hand, gesturing to the large broken pieces of Asgard that floated through space. _"There is nothing left but shame and ruins. Ragnarok—a prophesy predicted centuries ago has finally came. Tell me, Thor son of Odin, how does it feel to be a king with no kingdom?" _Thanos finally turned, setting his gaze upon the smaller God. _

_The metal that had once been wrapped across Thor's mouth was ripped away. Thor gasped as the air hit his lungs once more. _"What… do… you want from us?"

"You have something that belongs to me."

_Thor glanced to his brother and then back to Thanos. _"I assure you we hold nothing of yours on this ship. Now I suggest you be on your merry way, before I kill you."

_Thanos exhaled heavily. _"Your ignorance irritates me." _Thanos turned to his Children. _"You know what to do."

_The sounds of weapons being drawn followed by the loud screeching of screams filled the ship. _

-:-

**2018**

Seattle, Washington

-:-

Rachel awoke with a heavy gasp, heart pounding heavy in her chest and her ears.

In the days that followed after she awoke from her vision, Rachel was on edge and her roommate could tell. On numerous occasions, Blaire asked if she was OK, but after getting the same dismissive response from Rachel, she stepped back—leaving Rachel to her thoughts.

But as the days wore on, the visions ensued—some similar or different from the first, but all relating to one thing: a large purple figure that wasn't from this world they called Thanos and the destruction of the universe by his hand. Rachel would roll in her bed, after being awoken from another vision, trying to get to grasps of what her power was showing her, only to grasp her head in agony as pain throbbed through her mind. By the end of the working week, Rachel was bedridden—her entire body shaking, pale and soaked in sweat as she was repeatedly waking up from vision after vision.

Blaire, whom had rushed to her bedside when she awoken by the scream, tried her hardest to comfort her friend as she had for every single night since.

"We need to contact someone—a doctor, maybe. You can't keep going on like this. You're sick, you have a temperature, and you're shaking like a leaf. Whatever this power is showing you, it's tearing you apart." Blaire pleaded, watching as Rachel shakily took a sip from the glass of water Blaire had brought her, reaching out to hold the glass still it shook violently in Rachel's hand.

"N-No d-doctors, y-you know t-that." Rachel stuttered, her lids heavy and skin pale but shining from the thick layer of sweat. "M'fine."

Blaire huffed in annoyance. "Rachel, _you're not _fine. I have _never_ seen you like this before—not even before the attack in New York." Blaire paused, realization and dread waving across her face. "Something's coming isn't it? Something bigger than the attack in Manhattan." Rachel looked away—at anywhere but Blaire. Her friend squeezed her hand. "Rachel, you can't keep this to yourself—if people's lives are in danger, we have to warn somebody." Blaire hissed.

"Oh, like the government you mean?" Rachel snorted. "How d-do you think t-that phone call we go, h-huh?" Rachel shook as another wave of shakes overcame her. "I need t-to call work to say I won't be in." Rachel reached for her phone on the bedside table, her entire body aching as she moved.

Before Rachel could reach her phone, it was snapped up by Blaire. "I'll sort that. You just rest, OK? I have to go to work, but I'll keep my phone on me if you need me. I've left some Asprin on the side—take some."

Rachel laid her head back against the pillow. "Thanks Mom." she chuckled.

Blaire rolled her eyes. "Sweet dreams, kiddo."

Rachel watched as Blaire left the room, to make the phone-call to her work to say she couldn't make it in. Rachel sighed and stared up at the ceiling, revisiting in her head what the vision she had awoken from had shown her. She had seen Thor, Asgard destroyed, on a ship with the last of his people and Thanos was there—slaughtering with no mercy. He was after a something—a gem, similar to the one on his gauntlet. She couldn't understand the significance of this gem; only (like the one he already possessed in the vision) it held immeasurable power that was undoubtedly a catalyst to Thanos' impending destruction of the universe as they knew it.

Rachel groaned, feeling a wave of nausea overtake her, kneeling to the side to be sick in the bowl Blaire had placed at her beside during the night. It wasn't uncommon for Rachel to react after visions—especially ones of such importance—but this was beyond Rachel's control and she knew the more her power was showing her, the more her body reacted as it tried to fight off the foreign images in her brain.

"Rach?" Blaire had returned and looked worried. "You've been sick again." Blaire winced. "Maybe I should tell work I can't come in…"

"No," Rachel croaked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "I'll be fine in a few minutes. Besides, with all the shifts I'm missing, we'll need the money we can get for rent." Even though they lived in a dingy, small two-bedroomed apartment, rent wasn't cheap in Seattle—but that's how it goes when you're living in the heart of the city.

"Just call me if you need anything, OK? I'll ask Mrs. Donovan to pop in and make you some soup."

Rachel groaned, as her friend mentioned their elderly neighbour. "No way, I'll have to listen to her rattle on about her cats for hours." Rachel winced, a particular memory of the time Rachel lost her keys and she had to sit in Mrs. Donovan's sitting room—being used framed pictures after pictures of her cats—until Blaire returned home. "Besides, I'm starting to feel a bit better now."

"Your stubbornness is your most annoying trait, you know that right?" Blaire rolled her eyes, giving in.

"But you love me anyway." Rachel responded.

Blaire snorted. "Yeah, whatever, bye Oracle."

"Bye."

Rachel sighed as she heard the door shut and stared up at the ceiling once again, listening to the buzz of cars outside the apartment building on the street below. She thought of the clueless people, going about their day—making their way to work or school, completely oblivious to what was to come in days, weeks, months or years to come.

Rachel dug her hand underneath her pillow, pulling out the small disposable phone and stared at it. Since Rachel had sent the text days before, she had received only silence. Before now, Rachel had never been in a situation where she needed to use it since it was given to her a decade ago. There were close calls—the attack in New York being one of them—but Rachel always ultimately decided to let it slide, as her visions always resulted in the Avengers being there to save the day one way or another.

Rachel chewed her lip as she thought of the heroes that had plagued her dreams since she was a child. As a child, she was enamored by the heroes, as the world had been too when they first saved the world from an alien invasion in 2012—but with no surprise, after so long, people react like they always do to something powerful that they don't understand, with hate and fear, and now there were little of them left.

Rachel's train of thought was interrupted by a sharp rapid knocking from the front door. Rachel huffed, pulling herself from the bed—with difficulty—and headed for the front door, using the walls to support her shaking legs.

"I'm coming, I'm coming,"—Rachel hollered as the knocking persisted as she reached the door—"Honestly, Blaire, we put the spare key under the matt for a reason…" Rachel's words trailed from her mouth as she opened the door and saw who she was looking—or, more specifically, not who she thought she would be looking—at. "You're late."

Nick Fury rolled his eyes—or rather eye—at the brunette. "Good to you see, too, Ms James."

Rachel merely narrowed her eyes in response; "Do you know what SOS means?"

"We got here as soon as we could." Rachel moved her eyes to the left of Fury, noticing the tall stern-faced woman standing a foot behind Fury. Both were dressed discretely in muted black and grey clothing—the woman wary of their surroundings, as her eyes watched up and down the corridor for movement. Rachel lived on a big apartment building, but on the floor Rachel lived on, there was only three other apartments—but the open staircase was constantly buzzing with people moving up and down the 10 floors. "How about we do introductions inside? We have had a hell'of'va journey and I could do with a coffee right about now."

Rachel nodded and silently stepping aside, opening the door wide to let the two adults through. As Rachel shut the door, she watched as Fury and the nameless woman stared at their surroundings—inspecting her small flat that was filled with cheap IKEA or thrift-shop furnishing and slight clutter on the table or kitchen countertops.

"You've grown a beard," Rachel noted to Fury as she walked over to the kitchen, switching on the coffee pot to brew a fresh batch, trying to ignore the lightness in her head making her sway slightly as she moved on her feet. "Embracing the pirate look, eh?"

"I see your dry humor hasn't changed." Fury noted.

Rachel glanced over her shoulder. "And I see your lack-there-of humor hasn't changed either. Still take it black?" Fury nodded. Rachel wordlessly passed him a mug of black coffee. "And you?"

"Cream, no sugar." The stern-faced woman responded. Rachel nodded and poured in the cream. "You two seem… well acquainted. Am I missing something?" the woman said, looking confused between Fury and Rachel. She muttered her thanks to Rachel as she passed her the mug and joined Fury who had sat at the small square table by the bay window that overlooked the city.

Rachel turned to look at Fury, raising an eyebrow to him. "You brought her along but didn't tell her about me?"

Fury shrugged. "I told her the basics."

"Which is nothing then, I suppose?" Rachel pondered, placing herself between the two agents, cradling her own steaming mug of coffee, turning to face the agent. "I'm Rachel James."

"Maria Hill." The agent nodded curtly.

Rachel nodded in recognition. "Ah, yeah, former SHIELD agent right? I think I remember reading your name in the leaked SHIELD files. And… don't you work for the Avengers?"

"Worked." Hill responded.

"Right." Rachel muttered. "Four missing fugitive Avengers and two on house arrest—your Avengers Initiative didn't exactly work as planned, huh Fury. I'm sorry." Rachel said sincerely.

"Yeah, well, a tip off would have come in _real _handy." Fury dryly commented.

Rachel looked at the man firmly. "You know my powers don't work that way. I don't choose what, when or who I see."

"You mean your psychic abilities?" Hill questioned.

Rachel nodded silently. Rachel could practically see the questions reeling around the agents head, but when her mouth opened to ask another question, she was beaten to it.

"Why don't we get down to the real reason why we traveled across the country to see you, Ms. James" Fury rested back in his seat, observing Rachel with his firm eye.

Rachel swallowed thickly, the grip on her mug strained and her shoulders tensed. "You have to realize that what I'm about to say to you isn't to be taken lightly," Rachel whispered, eyes glancing between the two adults. "What I saw… what I'm seeing…"—Rachel shook her head—"…is beyond _anything_ my power has shown before." Rachel inhaled and exhaled.

"Four days ago I had this vision; I was at work, it was a normal day, and then… and then people began to just disappear—turn into dust before my very eyes. People were screaming, crying and disappearing left, right and centre. There was nothing anyone could do." Rachel looked between Fury and Hill, and hesitantly continued; "I woke up, and I didn't understand what I had just saw; but the visions didn't stop. I began to see other things"—Rachel shuddered—"I have serious reason to believe our planet is in grave danger."

"What did you see?" Fury asked.

Rachel hesitated for a moment. "Destruction. Death. Downfall."

"Are you talking a global attack, here?" Hill asked. "Like the attack on Manhattan?"

Rachel shook her head. "Bigger. _Much _bigger." Her voice shook as she spoke. "I'm talking about the entire _universe. _Vast populations and planets _disintegrated into dust._ And at the centre of it all… I keep seeing a powerful being—not from this Earth—called Thanos. And these _gems… _or stones… I don't know what they are exactly, but they are powerful… he's after them and he's not going to stop." Rachel glanced up to see Fury and Hill sharing a silent look. "You know about the stones I'm talking about." Rachel stated. Fury and Hill remained silent. Rachel sighed exasperatedly. "Let me guess, classified information." She grumbled, rubbing her head along her forehead feeling the dull ache strengthen.

"How long have you been having these visions?" Fury asked.

Rachel shrugged. "Like I said, four days ago—since that night I messaged you."

"Just in your dreams?"

"No." Rachel shook her head. "Sleeping or awake, the visions have been non-stop. I have barely slept. I haven't been able to leave my bed." Rachel whispered.

Fury paused for a moment, undoubtedly taking in her pale and sickly appearance—her dark circles, pale skin sheen with sweat and messy hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in a day or two. "When?" Fury asked.

"I don't know." Rachel admitted. "But judging by the amount of visions that have happened over the past four days, I would say soon—half a year at the moment, I guess."

"A year until what exactly?"

"Until he comes looking for what he wants would be my obvious assumption."

Fury raised a fist to his mouth, staring at Rachel for several long firm moments. "Jesus Fuck." He hissed. Hill stared at his boss, face firm but eyes glimmered with a sense of fear at what was to come. "James, you've got to tell us everything you know about this alien… James?" the two agents turned their attention to the young brunette who was now frozen in her seat, her eyes clouded and mouth muttering incoherent words. "Rachel? Can you hear me?"

Rachel gasped "No!" before her body lost balance, and fell to the ground with a thud.

Fury dropped to Rachel's side, her body jerking and her clouded eyes rolled to the back of her head. "She's having a seizure. Call for an ambulance and get Stark on the phone STAT."

-:-

**2018**

Avengers Compound, Upstate New York

-:-

Pepper Potts sighed frustratingly as she glanced through the glass walls of the laboratory to see her fiancé slumped over a table, tinkering, dressed in just slacks and band-tee. Loud, ear-deafening music could be heard through the thick glass. Pepper glanced at her watched, seeing it was almost quarter past four in the afternoon, and pressed a button on the keypad that opened the doors. The strawberry blonde winced as the music attacked her eardrums, reaching up to cover her ears with her hands, whilst clutching her tablet close to her chest.

"FRIDAY, please turn the music off." Pepper said—her voice unheard through the music. Seconds later, the music was abruptly ended. Stark glanced up from his desk and saw Pepper standing by the glass doors, a look on her face that Tony had come to know too well.

Tony raised his gloved hands in surrender. "Whatever I've done, I apologize."

Pepper rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

"OK, this look usually means I have missed something very important or done something bad… what was it—big meeting with the Stark Industries stakeholders? Did I leave Ross on the hold for too long again? Honestly, I just find it fun to watch the red light blink… I mean, after an hour you'd figure the guy would hang up. How much time does the Secretary of State have on his hands exactly?"

Pepper sighed exasperatedly, interrupting her fiancé's tangent. "Today is the March 12th which means we had a meeting with the…" Pepper trailed off.

"The wedding planner, right." Tony winced, stepping forward and placing his hands on Pepper's forearms.

"Bingo."

Tony grimaced. "Did you re-arrange?"

"Next Tuesday—it's in your diary _and_ I've set a reminder with FRIDAY." Pepper responded, reaching up to brush some of the stray hairs from his forehead, noticing the slight grease it held. "When was the last time you left the lab and showered?" Pepper raised a knowing brow at Tony, watching as he shuffled slightly on the spot, and looked away. "Right, c'mon, you have forty minutes to shower and dress into something more _reasonable_."

Tony furrowed his brows in confusion. "Shower for what?"

Pepper huffed in frustration. "Dinner with Rhodey—remember?" Tony's blank expression didn't help ease Pepper's frustration. "It's his _birthday._ Jesus, Tony, you've known this guy longer than me and you still can't remember his birthday."

"Of course I know my best friend's birthday – March 12th."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "What year?" somewhere in the distance the sound of Tony's phone ringing could be heard.

"Every year, duh—that's how birthdays work." Tony scoffed.

"Funny." Pepper dryly remarked, turning on the spot and leaving the lab. "Now go shower—you stink. And answer the phone!"

"Y'know I'm starting to rethink this marriage thing!" Tony shouted after his fiance who didn't turn back. He watched her ascend up the stairs and turned once she was out of sight, leaving him alone in the lab with the ringing phone in the distance.

Tony sighed and picked up his phone, where he left it a few yards from where he had been working on the desk. He blinked and winced as his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the screen in the dimly lit lab and looked at the name on the screen. His eyes rolled as he saw the name 'Maria Hill' flash across the screen. His finger lingered over the 'hang-up' button, but then an afterthought moved his finger to the green button. "How many times do I have to tell you, Hill—_no_ I am not interested in joining the Nick Fury fan club. I'm already a loyal patron to the Phil Coulson fan club."

-:-

**2018**

Undisclosed Location, United States

-:-

Rachel groaned as the darkness lifted and she finally awakened. Her body felt stiff and ached, making it hard to move, and her head felt like it was full of fog making it difficult to connect thoughts together. She opened her eyes, her visions blurred at first, but as she blinked the fuzziness drifted away and she could finally take in her surroundings; she looked to be in some sort of hospital bed, dressed in a hospital gown and tubes and wires were attached to her body.

_Did Blaire take her to the hospital? _Rachel wondered, as she looked around her. As she looked to the right, she noticed a woman standing next to her IV machine, reading the monitor and jotting notes on her clipboard. Dressed in scrubs, Rachel assumed she was a nurse. "Where am I?" Rachel croaked, her voice dry and weak.

The nurse looked at her, acknowledging she was awake. "It's good to see you're awake, Ms. James—you had a serious seizure." She said, giving her a soft smile. "Here, have some water,"—the nurse brought a plastic cup to her lips. Rachel took several lengthy sips, feeling a sense of relief as the water soothed her dry throat. "I'll let them know you're awake. They have been eager to speak to you." the nurse smiled at her once more, patting the back of her hand, and left the room.

Rachel watched the nurse leave, confused and disorientated, but aware that the nurse hadn't answered where she was. Immediately her mind began to panic, she attempted to pull herself up from the bed, only to drop back down with a grunt when her weak body protested. _Had they found me? _Rachel thought as her heart-pace began to quicken, and her breathes become shorter, her eyes moved around the room to search for possible exits—there were no windows, making it impossible to make her location clear, and the only exit was the closed door the nurse had left from.

"Ms. James,"—a familiar voice and face entered the room, interrupting her panic. She turned to see Nick Fury enter the room, but he wasn't alone. A woman—who Rachel knew to be fairly familiar—with a stern face follow close behind—"You had his worried. I'm glad to see you're OK. We hadn't finished with our conversation." Rachel looked at the man with furrowed brows as he stopped at the foot of her bed. "Do you remember what we were last talking about?"

Rachel saw flashes of memories coming back to her and suddenly things started to become clearer. "Yes, sorry," Rachel breathed. "We were talking and then the next thing I know, I was having another vision." Rachel winced as the images of the vision were coming back to her.

Fury nodded. "What did you see?"

Rachel opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, the door opened loudly and another voice filled the room; "You know for organisation heavily funded by the government, you'd think SHIELD would have a decent cup of coffee in this place." Fury, Hill and Rachel's eyes moved to see none other than Tony Stark striding into the room dressed in a tailored smoke-grey suit with a band-tee underneath. His short greying brown hair carelessly styled and tinted glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Fury. Hill." Tony acknowledged the two adults, throwing himself into one of the armchairs and tossed the empty coffee cup into a waste-bin across the room.

"I'm glad you can join us, Stark."

"Yeah, well, I was pretty busy but your number one groupie here managed to convince me round." Tony nodded to Hill who merely rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. Tony glanced at Rachel over Fury and Hill's shoulder. "Who's the sick kid?" Tony asked carelessly. "Wait, this isn't a Make-A-Wish thing is it? Where's the cameras?" Tony began looking around the room.

"Stark, this is Rachel James."

Rachel who had been silently watching the Avenger, nervously smiled at the man who had been a-part of her visions for as long as she could remember.

Stark stared at the girl for a long moment, waiting for her to talk, before turning to Fury and Hill. "Does she speak?"

"Yes." Rachel croaked simply. "But you could have asked me that, rather than them."

The corner of Tony's lips twitched. "Sassy. Cute."

"Douchebag. Not-so-cute." Rachel retorted, wincing as she reached forward to pick up the paper cup that the nurse had placed on the table over her lap.

Tony was silent for a moment. "I like her. Who's your parents, kid?"

"Dead." Rachel responded, taking a long sip of her water.

Tony raised his brows at her response. "Interesting."

"Don't see how that's interesting, but whatever floats your boat, wierdo." Rachel shrugged.

Tony opened her mouth, only to be interrupted by Fury.

"Enough. You can annoy Ms. James later, Stark. We have _bigger_ things to discuss. Stark,"—Fury addressed the Avenger firmly—"for once in your life you're going to have to shut up and listen to what I have to tell you." Tony opened his mouth. "I_ mean _it." Tony closed his mouth with a sigh, leaning back in his arm chair, and waved a hand for Fury to continue. "_Thank _you. Ms. James here came to our attention in 2001—an old SHIELD contact reached out to Coulson. I wasn't the Director at the time, but Coulson worked under me. Coulson had been approached about a six year old girl with psychic abilities. That girl was Ms. James." Fury nodded to Rachel who was now staring down at her throw, picking at the thread.

"Before now, I had only encountered one _unnatural _being and then Ms. James was the second. Ms. James is the only known human to mine—and at the time SHIELD's—knowledge with the power to see into the future. Safe to say, Ms. James saw you apart of the Avengers Initiative before I approached you in the big plastic donut years ago."

Tony's eyes flickered between Rachel and Fury.

"As we all know from the 2014 incident, SHIELD was not built on the _strongest_ foundations. The word spread and as you can imagine, a person with power of this extreme peaked _a lot _of interest from the wrong crowd."

"HYDRA." was all Tony had to say. From behind Fury, Rachel visibly flinched.

Fury nodded. "Eventually I made the decision to put Rachel into hiding ten years ago. She was given a new home, a new identity under the name Rachel Evans, which she still uses to this day. I—now Hill—am the person who knew of Rachel's whereabouts. To SHIELD and HYDRA's knowledge, Rachel James died ten years ago. On public record, Rachel James died in the house fire that killed her parents. The intent was that Rachel would live a normal life—and HYRDA's attention undoubtedly turned elsewhere as man in an iron suit stared appearing in the sky, an alien God fell from the sky and a super-soldier from the 1940s was found frozen in ice alive."

Tony looked down at the mention of Captain America. "So what? HYDRA now knows she's alive? You need a safe place for the kid to lie low." Tony assumed.

"I wish it was as simple as HYRDA." Fury remarked. "I'm afraid, Stark, this is much bigger than HYDRA and you ain't gonna like what I have to tell you."

Tony looked warily at the former Director of SHIELD. "I've seen weird shit over the past ten odd years—you'd be surprised. Go on."

Fury exhaled heavily. "As you know, over the past six years, stones with immeasurable power have been _conveniently _popping up when trouble arises."

"Like the Tesseract and stone now currently sitting in the middle of Vision's head." Hill interrupted.

"Exactly," Fury nodded. "Ms. James has seen that they are being hunted down—by a powerful alien being not from Earth. And, while we don't know the specifics of his intentions with the stones,"—Fury glanced over his shoulder to Rachel—"we know that when he gets the stones he is looking for, the universe as we know it will be destroyed."

Tony slowly looked between Fury, Hill and finally Rachel. "And this kid predicted this? How do you know it will really happen?"

"You don't." Rachel muttered. "But Thanos is coming and _millions _of people _will _die when he gets those stones."

Fury turned to look at the Avenger that looked doubtful of what he was hearing. "Stark, I think it's time you made a phone-call."

Stark glanced up at Fury quickly. "No. No-way." Stark shook his head firmly.

"Stark…"

"You call him. I know you've been keeping tabs on him." Stark stood from the chair and faced away from the group, shoving his clenched fists in his trouser pockets.

"It has to be from you and you know it Stark."

Fury, Hill and Rachel watched as Tony Stark's shoulders tense and his head drops in defeat.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary:** What if Captain Marvel wasn't the only secret Nick Fury had kept from the world? In 2001, Nick Fury encounters a girl with an extraordinary power to see the future. Now, the threat of Thanos looms closer, maybe Rachel James is the only one with the power to stop it.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Everything, apart from my OC, belongs to Marvel.

**Author's Note: **Thank you to everyone who has joined this story's journey with a favourite or a follow since the last chapter :D And thank you for the lovely responses about the story. It makes me so happy to hear you're enjoying the story so far! I planned to have got this chapter up two weeks ago before I went away on my holiday but unfortunately that never happened and there was no internet at the cottage I was staying out, so… that plan failed miserably! Anyway, better late than never – enjoy!

**Note:** This story will be strictly following the MCU, which isn't including the TV series spin-offs—i.e. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Agent Carter, Jessica Jones etc. however I'm tempted to include Daredevil. Let me know your thoughts on including Daredevil, whether you're down for a bit of a crossover or not!

**Chapter Three**

**-:-**

**2018**

S.H.I.E.L.D Undisclosed Location, United States

**-:-**

For the next five hours, Rachel remained in the hospital room, being pocked and prodded by nurses and doctors. After Tony disappeared, Fury and Hill were called away by an unknown agent, leaving Rachel alone, with little to do, only to ponder what had happened over the short space of time. Sometimes the nurses would make conversation with her, separate to the mundane medical talk, but for the most part the medical staff that came to check up on her, left her to herself—whether this was what they were ordered to do, Rachel wasn't sure, but by the end of the five hours she was bored out of her mind.

"Can I have a newspaper, magazine, medical journal—_anything? _I'm bored out of mind here," Rachel addressed the more sociable of the nurses that was treating her—a middle aged Hispanic woman with dark black curls and a kind smile. The name-tag on her scrubs read 'Elena', and the briefest of touch as their bare skin met told her she had two young boys, one of which was going to learn how to ride a bike that weekend.

The nurse looked at her with a conflicted look, but eventually the look turned to pity. "Well, I see no harm in that. You're obviously recovering well . . . I'll see what I can do." Elena gave her a pitying smile and a pat on the forearm with her gloved hand as she pulled the stethoscope away and hooked it around her neck. "I think it's safe to say you're free to be out of this bed—but that's not my decision to make,"—Elena added as she saw the hopeful look reach Rachel's eyes—"I'll have a doctor come to check you over and then alert the Director."

Rachel furrowed her brows. "You mean Fury?"

"Fury hasn't been the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D for a number of years. No, I mean . . ."—Elena's words were interrupted by the sound of the doors opening. Elena and Rachel turned to see Agent Phil Coulson enter the room, flanked by a black-haired male agent. Elena postured straightened—"Director Coulson."

Rachel looked between the nurse and Coulson with raised eyebrows. "Director?"

Phil gave her a small smile as he reached her bedside; "A lot has changed since we last saw each other 10 years ago. Thank you, nurse." Phil nodded the Elena quietly slipped from the room, shutting the door silently behind her.

Rachel smiled fondly at the older man, whom she had not seen in sometime—noting how he looked visibly older, but relatively still the same kind-eyed agent that walked into her house in Ohio those years ago. "Like dying at the hand of Loki and coming back to life again?" Rachel responded, with a hint of a grin on the corner of her lips.

"Ah,"—Phil contradicted with the wave of a finger—"Now that was Fury's idea not mine. And besides, I'm not the only one that appears to have been raised from the dead."

"Fury's idea not mine." Rachel quoted his own words, to which Phil chuckled in response.

Phil turned to his agent; "Could you wait for me outside?" the agent nodded and disappeared, leaving Phil and Rachel alone. Phil pulled forth a chair and sat at her bedside. "When I got the call from Fury, you don't know how happy I was to hear you were still alive." Phil smiled. "There is so much for us to catch up on, but I'm afraid I don't have the time. Though I have to ask; have you been safe? Were you treated well?"

"Very safe,"—Rachel answered—"Treated well? Debatable. I was fed and I had a bed to sleep on at night,"—Rachel gave a strained smile—"I left as soon as I was old enough to live alone, and never went back, and Evans never came looking for me. Her mission was complete." Rachel ended with a simple shrug.

Phil nodded solemnly, a slight grimace on his lips. "Fury mentioned you were put under the care of Agent Evans; a great agent but not exactly the most _motherly _type. If I had known, I . . ."

"You were too close to me."—Rachel interjected—"You would have been too obvious of a choice. Fury knew no-one involved in S.H.I.E.L.D at that time could have taken me in, and I don't blame him for putting me in Evans's care. It enabled me to live a new life, one where I didn't have to look over my shoulder in fear." As much as Rachel hated her childhood under the care of Evans, she wasn't lying as she said this. Was she happy living under the care of a cold, loveless agent? No. But she was safe and she had a relatively normal life. She graduated high school, started college, and made a friend in Blaire and latterly Lucas once she started working.

Phil nodded, accepting what she said with a slight begrudging look in his eye. "Fury has told me about the visions. I'm sorry you are having to deal with them, and that is has led to this,"—Phil gestured to the hospital bed she lay on—"Fury mentioned you had another. The vision that caused you to go into a seizure,"—Rachel grimaced—"I need you to tell me what happened in that vision please, Rachel."

Rachel exhaled heavily. "I don't fully understand it . . . it's hard to explain."

"Just try your best." Phil encouraged softly.

"It was after Thanos . . ."—Rachel paused—"He had gotten the stones, and he was on Earth. It looked like it was somewhere foreign—it was not in the US for sure—and it was a battlefield. Every hero was trying to stop him, but they just . . . _failed_." Rachel shook her head, the image of a bearded Captain America being thrown aside like a child with it's ragdoll. "The woman with telekinetic powers,"—Rachel stopped again—"I-I can't remember her name, but I've seen her on the news and in some of my visions when Ultron happened."—Rachel shook her head as she desperately tried to remember the name of the red headed European-accented woman—"She was trying to destroy the stone on Vision's head. And she did it, she destroyed the stone, but it was too late—Thanos used a green stone that allowed him to _reverse _time." Rachel looked at Phil hopelessly. "Once he has the stones, there is nothing we can do to stop him."

Phil inhaled deeply through his nose. "So we stop him before he gets the first stone."

"That's the thing," Rachel shook her head. "I think he has been looking for these stones for _years, _which means this fight begun a long time ago. We're too late."

-:-

**2018**

Avengers Compound, Upstate New York

-:-

Tony Stark threw back his umpteenth glass of whisky in that hour, staring through the glass that looked out over the training room. Twenty feet below him, Vision and Rhodey were practising. The latter was testing out the newest upgrade to the War Machine suit, sending blasts in the direction of Vision, which he missed effortlessly. Since the accident in Berlin, Rhodey remained paralyzed from the waist down but had managed to near enough walk again through technology Tony tirelessly worked on. He would never be able to walk again by himself, but with the assistance of Tony's inventions, he somewhat back to normal health and remained the War Machine for all intents and purposes.

Tony exhaled heavily and looked down at the object in his hand, turning the smooth flip-phone in his hand. For something so small, the phone felt heavier and heavier by every minute that passed by, as his mind continued to race back and forth. Sometimes he would move his thumb to open the phone, only to back away moments later with a huff, which was usually followed by downing another glass of whiskey.

"_It has to be from you and you know it, Stark._"

The words Fury had spoken raced around his brain on a repeating loop, engraving deeper and deeper into his mind.

"Tony?" Tony snapped his head over his shoulder to see Pepper staring at him with a worried look in her ocean-green eyes, dressed in a cotton white shirt, jeans and bare-footed, with a gentle hand on his shoulder. His heart clenched as he thought of her hand, her body, her face all disappearing into dust before his very eyes. "You've nearly made it through a whole bottle of whiskey," Pepper nodded to the glass tumbler bottle, placed nearby on a side-table. "What's wrong? You haven't been the same since you mysteriously jetted off to somewhere unknown yesterday." Tony looked down at his empty glass. He slipped the phone into his pocket and moved to pour himself another glass quietly. Behind him, he could vividly hear Pepper sigh and then her hand slipped away. "Fine, you don't have to tell me."

Pepper moved to walk away.

"Endgame." Tony blurted out as Pepper was half-way towards the door. Pepper paused and looked at him, confused. "You remember that vision I told you about—the one that Wanda put in my head years ago?" Tony tapped his forehead. Pepper slowly nodded, brows furrowing in worry and lips forming a tight line. It was the same vision that had kept him awake nights on end—long after Ultron was destroyed, to Pepper's concern. Eventually as time passed, the reoccurring nightmare became less consistent, but it returned every once in a while. "Well, it's happening—or, it will be happening, I don't know." Tony grumbled, throwing back the continence of his glass in a single gulp, and reached for the bottle again.

"Tony, you're not making a lot of sense right now." Pepper said slowly. "Why don't we put away the alcohol and talk this through together, OK?"

"There's this kid,"—Tony continued, ignoring what Pepper said—"that Fury has kept hidden for years and erased every single file of her from the S.H.I.E.L.D database. She has the ability to _see the future_," Tony snorted. "And guess what she has predicted? Endgame; the one thing that plagued my mind since I threw that damn-nuclear missile into space." Tony pointed a finger skyward. "Apparently this alien is coming and will _destroy _Earth after he's finished ripping the stone from Vision's head. I mean, who's the say this kid is telling the truth?" Tony snorted, taking another glass of whisky, and balancing himself on the side-table as his legs began to sway.

"Tony you're scaring me." Pepper spoke, pleadingly.

"Good. You should be if this kid is telling the truth." Tony responded, carelessly. "And Fury. . . He thinks calling Captain America will help?" Tony slurred, pulling the phone from his pocket, and shook it in his clenched fist. "What can the almighty Captain America do to a powerful alien with the infinity stones? Give him a migraine with his shield?" Tony laughed dryly.

". . . I think if Fury thinks you should call Steve, you should call him." Pepper quietly said. Tony looked at her aghast, opening his mouth to speak. "No, listen Tony, whatever you're telling me—I mean world destruction? Alien with powerful stones out to destroy Earth?—this is a whole lot bigger than the accords."

Tony stared at her wide-eyed. "Right, OK, let's just hypothesize right now; if, _if_, I were to call him—what if all this turns out to be wrong? We don't know this kid. We don't know if it's the truth. She could have been high on mushrooms or whatever the kids are taking these days when she had the trippy vision. _And_ bringing him back could risk landing him—_an internationally renowned fugitive_—into Ross's hands. Not that I would care, as personally, I would love nothing more to see Steve Rogers in an orange jumpsuit with a 'I love Jesus' tattoo on his bicep."

"Did you meet the girl?" Pepper asked, arms crossed over her chest.

"Yeah," Tony shrugged. "She was sassy."

Pepper smirked. "So you liked her then." Pepper stepped forward. "What do you know about her?"

"Brought to SHIELD's attention by her parents when she was six; Her parents were killed by HYDRA; Fury faked her death and put her in hiding to throw HYDRA off her scent; And . . ."

"And?" Pepper pushed.

Tony looked at Pepper firmly. "And she knew me as Iron Man before I even _went_ to Afghanistan."

Pepper stared at Tony, her face a void of emotion. Slowly she grasped her hand around Tony's wrist and brought the phone in his clenched fist into the space between them. "Call him, Tony."

Tony looked conflicted. ". . . I . . ."

"I'm afraid I must agree with Miss. Potts on this one, Stark." Tony and Pepper both looked to the left to see Vision and Rhodey at the threshold of the room.

Rhodey nodded in agreement. "This isn't a three man fight, Tony. We're going to need all the manpower we can get."

**-:-**

**2018**

Off the coast of Portugal, Europe

**-:-**

In the dead of night, a cargo ship moved tirelessly through the harsh ocean waves towards the harbour that loomed in the far distance. Upon the ship, men armed heavily with guns, patrolled the ship speaking amongst themselves in a foreign language or moving in silence. At the end of the ship, two armed men stood outside a locked crate, one of the said men reaching to his pocket to light a cigarette, which glowed through the dark shadows of the ship brightly. As the man re-pocketed his lighter, a distinct cry was heard from inside the crate.

"_Silence_!" the man shouted, banging on the crate door with his fist, making a loud bang and rattle as his hand contacted with the metal. This was followed by the sound of several feminine screams and the rustle of movement against the metal crate walls. A patrolling armed guard passed by, but paid no mind to the sounds coming from the crate; he looked away as if nothing was unusual, greeting the two men outside the crate doors with a sharp nod, before disappearing out of sight.

"_We will never get them off this ship if they make this much noise,_" the other man spoke, in a language that was not English, to the first man. "_They will bring to much attention to us. Boss will not be happy if things go wrong and the trade doesn't happen._"

The first man looked at the other with a evil look on his face. "_Then I guess we'll have to shut them up, won't we?_"

The other man chuckled darkly. As the men moved to open the crate door, sliding the heavy metal lock free, a sound was heard from above the crate. The two men paused, and screams were heard once again from inside, when the sound from above the crate was made. "_What was that?_" the second man said to the other, as another thud was heard, a look of confusion crossing his shadowed face and the grip on his gun tightening.

"_It sounds like someone is on the crate_." The first man answered, drawing his gun upwards. The two men looked up, and in that moment, they were thrown to the ground as a body was thrown towards them. The two men were dropped to the ground under the weight of the body—the body happened to be the guard that had passed the crate moments earlier. The deep cut that had blood rolling down his face and his unresponsive expression made his current living status unknown.

More sounds coming from above the crate made the men scramble into action.

The men threw the unresponsive guard from above them. When the first man finally scrambled to his feet, he was dropped down once more when a punch connected with his face, sending him hurtling back against another crate with a loud bang. He outstretched his gun, finger poised on the trigger, but before he could shoot a fist had enclosed around his wrist and pointed the gun upwards.

_Bang. Bang. Bang. _

Three bullets were shot into the air above them, one skimming the top of a crate, sending a small spark above them as it grazed metal. The man was disarmed with a knee to the stomach and elbow to the neck, making the man choke and drop to the ground in agony.

The second man looked up to see their attacker, Captain America, dressed in a navy and black suit—almost unrecognizable at first, without his blue-red-and-white shield and suit, but it was clear whom had attacked them at the dead of night. A look of panic crossed the man's face as the Avenger turned to face him, blue-eyes hard as steel. The man moved to run, only to be met with a kick to the stomach as another attacker donned in mechanical red and silver wings flew towards him at great speed. Sam Wilson watched as the man fell to the ground beside the other two unresponsive men.

"I had that one." Steve said to his friend as he yanked the guns from the men's grasps, throwing one of the weapons in Sam's direction—to which the Falcon caught effortlessly.

"Yeah, whatever." Sam smirked, before turning to look at the crate the men guarded. "Are they in there?"

Steve nodded. "Sounds like it." he said, as whimpers and cries sounded from within the crate. Steve stepped forward and wrenched the crate door open. Inside, although barely lit by the moonlight, a dozen young women are huddled together in the corner of the crate. Their clothes dirty, their faces sunken, and the smell that filled the crate made it unclear how long they had been inside the crate. "It's OK. You're safe now." Steve said softly. "We're not going to hurt you,"—he said with outstretched hands in surrender—"We're going to take you home." The girls looked between each other, confused and unsure of what he had said.

"Do any of you speak English?" Sam asked. As he began to step forward, the girls' whimpers intensified, making him pull back.

"_Hey guys?_" Steve and Sam paused as a familiar feminine voice spoke to them through their ear pieces. "_I think we have a possible bogie situation here. It looks like you have some heavily armed guards heading your way. I'm counting at least twenty. I don't think you were quite as stealthy as you hoped._" Sam and Steve looked at each other and nodded, as they both understood what Natasha Romanoff had just told them.

"Copy that." Steve responded. "We need to get these civilians out of arms way. Wanda—can you get the craft close to the ship without drawing much attention?"

"_I can try._" Wanda replied through the earpiece from her position in the aircraft, camouflaged into the dark night sky, hovering above the cargo ship.

"Great. Romanoff—think you can hold them off?"

"_Sure thing. Think I may need a hand from above though._"

Sam nodded. "I can do that. Think you can manage without me, Cap?"

"Yeah, now go."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "We need to talk about your attitude when we get back." he said jokingly before briskly moving out of the crate, and out of sight. The sound of his wings was head somewhere outside the crate as Sam jetted into the sky.

"Right," Steve breathed as he turned to the hostages who continued to cower from him in fright. "I know you don't understand anything I'm saying right now, but you need to follow me." Steve pleaded, gesturing with his hands for the women to follow him. The women looked between themselves unsure and fearful. "We"—Steve pointed to himself and then the women—"need. To. Go."—he pointed to the door exasperatedly. "Before… the _bad_ men with _guns_"—Steve gestured to the gun in his hands. A few of the women whimpered again—"OK, sorry, sorry. No moving the gun, got it." Steve noted to himself. "But we _need _to go." The sound of gunshots and shouts were heard in the distance. "_Now._"

One of the hostages slowly began to pull herself to her feet, a few of the other women grasped her hands to pull her back, but as the woman neared closer to Steve and noticed his careful movement to give her space, the others began to follow the first hostage's movement. Slowly, in small bulks, the women began to raise to their feet and start to follow the Steve towards the crate door. As Steve reached the door, four men appeared holding guns.

"_Stop!_" the scarved man shouted in a foreign language, pointing his gun at Steve. "Or we will shoot." He snarled, this time in English.

The women, although didn't understand a word in English, cried out and scrambled back into the shadows of the crate.

"I think it's time you let these women go, gentleman, don't you think?" Steve Rogers answered, making no movement to hold his hands up in surrender. "The moment this ship hits the shore, you'll be arrested. Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

The four men looked at each other and snickered. "And under whose authority do you speak? Captain America—the fallen Avenger; worldwide fugitive. I think the authorities will be more concerned with arresting _you _than _us_." The man spat, but his mouth then formed into a grimace. "I hear there is a _generous _reward for your capture, Captain. Perhaps we can make a deal—you let us go on our merry way and we will let you leave."

"That won't be happening and you know it." Steve responded firmly.

The man shrugged. "Very well." The clicks of safety caps being unlocked was heard from the four gunmen. The women behind Steve screamed again louder. As their fingers moved towards the trigger, something paused their action. An unexpected sound began to emerge—a ringtone loud enough for everyone to freeze mid-movement. The four gunmen looked between each other. "_Who is it?_" the gunman screamed in his language at his men. "Who is it_?!_"

"It's me." Steve answered unexpectedly, as he pulled a familiar flip-phone from his back pocket, seeing the name 'Tony Stark' flashing across the screen. Steve inhaled, feeling a strong feeling in his chest that made him momentarily forget his surroundings. Years had passed had the phone remained silent. Steve exhaled the breath he had been holding and answered the call; "Hey Tony. I really hope this is more important than the four guns that are being pointed at me right now."

-:-

**2018**

S.H.I.E.L.D. Undisclosed Location, United States

-:-

Three hours later, Rachel had been officially given the all clear to leave the hospital bed. Rachel had finished pulling the grey SHIELD sweatshirt over her head, which the nurse had supplied her with, when the doors of the hospital room opened. Rachel turned around to see Fury and Coulson step inside, Maria and the unnamed agent that had been escorting Coulson earlier, lingering a few feet behind.

"Ms. James, we will need you to come with us please," Fury said as he spotted Rachel, dressed, washed and showered—her cheeks tinted red from the shower and her wet brown hair plated into a braid—and standing a short distance from the hospital bed. Rachel opened her mouth to ask questions, but was quickly interrupted; "Just come with us please." Rachel huffed, rolling her eyes at the ex-Director's bluntness.

"Everything will become clear when we're there." Coulson supplied with a kind smile.

Rachel nodded and silently began to follow the agents. Fury left the room first, Maria following shortly behind. Rachel fell in step with Coulson and the unnamed agent followed. It was the first time Rachel was seeing outside of the hospital room since she had woken up in this place. She was disappointed to see that the large open corridors were as windowless as the room she was kept in, leaving the question of their whereabouts still unanswered. Like the hospital room, the floors and walls were made of cool concrete, which made Rachel wonder if they were in some kind of underground bunker.

"Please try to keep up, Rachel," Coulson said to Rachel as she started to lag behind.

"Not all of us have long legs, thank you very much." Rachel huffed as she gestured to her short, barely 5"3, stature. Phil didn't acknowledge her comment, but seemed to slower his step, and the agent behind them followed suit. Fury and Maria, however, continued their quick march down the corridor that seemed to go on forever. "Thank you." Rachel gratefully said to Phil, who merely gave her a silent smile in return, before returning his gaze to straight ahead of them. "So, where are we going?" Rachel asked, her curiosity getting the best of her, however before she could be answered, Fury and Maria stopped outside a room.

"Damn," Fury muttered, after the lock screen he placed his hand on, came up with 'Access Denied', moving to try his other hand but the same result occurred.

Rachel peered from around Maria's shoulder to look at the screen; "I may be wrong, but perhaps you actually have to be a SHIELD employee to enter?"

Fury shut a sharp glare in her direction.

"May I?" Phil gestured to the lock screen. Fury reluctantly stepped aside, grumbling under his breath, watching as the lock screen flashed green around Phil's hand and read '_Access Successful_', before the doors swiped open before them. "After you." Coulson says to Fury, gesturing for him to go first.

Fury rolled his singular eye; "Yeah, whatever." He said before stepping inside.

Rachel reached a hand to her mouth and coughed loudly. "_Jealous._" Fury snapped a head over his shoulder to look at Rachel, who merely shrugged innocently, with a: "Allergies."

The small dark corridor led through to a larger room that one side of the room was mirrored—no doubt one-way glass—and in the middle was a long steel table with chairs. And sitting at that said table, opposite one another looking extremely tense and awkward, were two men; Steve Rogers and Tony Stark.

"Oh Thank God you're here," Tony exclaimed as they walked into the room, throwing his hands exasperatedly into the air in relief. "The awkward silence was _suffocating _me."

From across the table, Steve looked annoyed. "I tried to talk, Tony, but you wouldn't listen."

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Tony responded.

As Rachel looked between the two heroes, Steve Rogers for the first time, Rachel found herself blurting out unexpectedly; "How old are you two—five years old?" Tony and Steve turned to look at her, Tony's eyebrow raised over his tinted glasses and Steve with a slightly guilty expression. "Sorry." Rachel mumbled, feeling her cheeks begin to heat and shuffled slightly to the left, further behind Coulson so she was out of their gaze.

"James is right. You two need to stop acting like kindergartens fighting over the same toy in the sandbox." Fury piped up.

Tony merely shrugged in response. "It was my turn."

Rachel looked between the two heroes, noting the contrast between them; Tony was vividly older—hair on his head and face streaked with grey at the roots, age lines across his tanned skin—but was also smaller than expected in comparison to Steve's towering frame, even in their seats they sat at. However Tony looked relatively the same to how she had seen him in her visions; Steve, on the other hand, only looked like the Steve she in one vision—the very last one, on the battlefield against Thanos, which even thinking about it sent shivers down her spine. His blonde hair had grown out, now brushing against his ears, and his once clean-shaven face was now sported a thick beard. There were small rings under his eyes that suggested many unslept nights, which was the only thing he shared with his former friend, who looked equally as sleep-deprived.

Rachel inhaled in dread as she realised she was looking at a different kind of Iron Man and Captain America than she was used to; they were beaten and torn. What hope did these divided heroes have against the impending war for the infinity stones?

"Now, I'm not going to beat around the bush,"—Fury chose to ignore Tony's comment. As he spoke, Coulson ushered Rachel into a seat beside him, three seats down from Tony. The unnamed agent lingered at the door and Maria sat down a seat down from Steve, nodding in his direction. Fury remained standing, pacing—"We all know by now why we're here." Rachel looked down at her enclosed hands in her lap as she felt Steve's eyes flicker in her direction. "We are about to face the biggest threat from the outside world since Loki. We don't know when it's going to happen but we do know what they are after. Fortunately, we know where the one stone is."

"Two." Rachel murmured. The room turned to look at her. Rachel shifted in her seat and began to explain; "In my visions, I have been seeing another stone and I think it's on Earth too. I don't know much about it, but I know it's green, and I know he uses it to . . ."—Rachel grimaced as she recalled the mind stone exploding on Vision's head and reversing back together again—". . . reverse time."

"Wait,"—Tony threw up his hands—"Are you saying there's an infinity stone on Earth somewhere that can control _time_?"

Rachel slowly nodded. "I think so."

"Well, there you go." Tony said, clapping his hands together. "We find the time stone, go back in time before this alien gets hold of all the stones, and kill him."

"That would work, if we could actually touch the stone." Steve responded dryly.

"Thanos had some kind of . . . gold gauntlet." Rachel piped up. "Maybe that's how he can wield the stones."

"Have we had any communication from Thor?" Coulson asked.

Tony shook his head. "Nothing. But it's got to be pretty hard to get signal in space." He joked dryly.

Rachel inhaled sharply as she saw the previous vision of Thanos slaughtering Asgardians, Thor and Loki fighting Thanos' children, flash before her eyes. "We're too late. We must be too late." Rachel whispered. "Thor, he was with Loki and what was left of the Asgardians . . . I saw him on a ship in space and Thanos was there. I think Loki had one of the stones. Thanos . . . he . . ."—Rachel swallowed and looked between Tony and Steve—". . . I'm sorry; I have no idea if he survived." Rachel watched as Steve's head dropped and Tony looked away.

There was a long pregnant pause before someone spoke again. "So we fight, with whatever we can. We round up as many people as we can." Steve said. "Do we know when or where they will come?"

Rachel shook her head. "No. So far, I have only seen one location where I know he will be—somewhere foreign. It looked like it was in the middle of dry lands, like Africa." Rachel shrugged.

"Wakanda." Steve said, looking around. "That can only be Wakanda." A few people nodded in agreement. "So, we spread the word and head for Wakanda. We keep Vision near us at all times."

"And what about the time stone?" Maria said.

"We look for that to. We did it before with the Tesseract, we can do it again. Tony?" Steve looked to his former-friend. "What do you think—do you agree?"

Tony was silent for a moment. "I think you'll need your shield back." Tony murmured.

Steve's facial expression dropped. "Tony, I . . ."

Tony ignored Steve's protests, jumping to his feet, avoiding Steve's gaze. "I'll start the search for the time-stone—I'll have F.R.I.D.A.Y scan for unusual forces, energies, the usual . . . this is where I could _really_ use with Banner right now." Tony flashed a tight smile, before turning to look at Rachel, a slight hopeful glint in his eye. "I don't suppose you have been having any visions of a big green monster, huh?"

"I . . ."—Rachel froze—". . . No, I don't think so, not recently."

Tony sighed. "Yeah, well, worth a shot. I'm sure an alien invasion will bring him out of hiding. See you guys at the end of the world." And with that, Tony had left the room.

A few moments after Tony's departure, Steve was also moving to his feet. "Y'know, five years back—an alien invasion, stones that could control time, the Earth at threat—I would never have believed it," Steve shook his head with a small chuckle. "Now? Not so much. I guess not much surprises you when you're over 100 years old."

Steve moved around the table and lingered a foot or two from Rachel. "It was nice meeting you, ma'am, under the circumstances. And thank you," Steve reached down, resting his hand on her shoulder. "Without you, we would have been completely blind-sighted."

Rachel opened her mouth to respond, but as she did so, Steve's hand dropped from her shoulder. However, as his hand dropped, his skin brushed against the skin of her hand. Rachel gasped and froze in spot; suddenly her surroundings began to blur and reshape. Flashes of images raced through her mind as she saw the future of Steve Rogers, to the very end. Rachel's surroundings returned in time to see Phil Coulson pulling Steve away from Rachel, and coming to her side, kneeling down close—but careful not to touch her skin.

"Rachel?" Phil spoke, softly.

Rachel was shuttering, and her head was pounding. She reached up as she felt something wet come trickle down her lip, she pulled away her fingers to see blood that was pouring from her nose.

"What did you see, James?" Fury asked, stepping forward.

Rachel looked up and met Fury's eyes. "I . . . I think I know how we can stop him."

* * *

**A/N: **...And done. I have literally been writing for about three hours and it's currently 12:37am here in the UK so I'm slightly delusional, haha. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Hopefully I'm going the characters justice, I never know if I'm getting them right, but in my head when I'm writing it it does!

So after this chapter you'll probably get a bit of an idea the route I'm probably taking. It will be staying true to Endgame but with a twist.

Please read and review! It would be great to read what you thought of this chapter :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary:** What if Captain Marvel wasn't the only secret Nick Fury had kept from the world? In 2001, Nick Fury encounters a girl with an extraordinary power to see the future. Now, the threat of Thanos looms closer, maybe Rachel James is the only one with the power to stop it.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Everything, apart from my OC, belongs to Marvel.

**Author's Note: **Er… Hi *Awkwardly waves* I'm back. Sorry for the two month absence! I won't bore you with the details of my life, but I've finally found the time to sit down and write! I hope it was worth the wait for those who have been asking about updates! I fully intended for this story to be a slow-burner, I didn't want to rush into what I had planned for this story—I had never (and still don't) intended for this to be a 10-chapter story. Unfortunately my upload schedule is practically non-existent so I can't promise a lot to happen in this chapter! But hopefully you're happy with the development there has been so far! Thank you to everyone that favourited, followed and reviewed—you are all so awesome!

* * *

**Chapter Four **

**-:-**

**2018**

S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters, Undisclosed Location

-:-

Rachel exhaled, watching her finger trace the rim of the glass of water placed on the table before her. Beneath her lashes, she could see her audience patiently waiting for her to begin talking. She sat rigidly in the seat Coulson had placed her in after pulling her away from Steve's grasp, she folded her feet together under the metal chair, before anxiously un-folding and refolding once again.

Rachel opened her mouth and began; "Since these visions began, I have only seen up to a certain point—Thanos coming to Earth to find the stones and using them collectively for the first time," Rachel swallowed thickly and glanced up, meeting Steve's gaze—his eyes curious, but the rest of his face remained firm and waiting. "After you touched me, I saw what will happen after the Snap."

"The Snap?" Coulson repeated, questionably from her other side, where he had remained after she remerged from the visions of Steve's future.

Rachel nodded. "I . . . I think that's what they are calling it—when Thanos uses the stones." Rachel thoughtfully answered. "From what I can gather, half of the universe's population is disintegrated into dust like _that_"—Rachel snapped her fingers, the sound echoing around the tense room. The sound caused not only herself, but Maria who stood across the room, against one of the walls to flinch—"a snap and everyone is gone. But not . . . everyone." Rachel's gaze flickered to Steve and Tony, the latter sat at the very end of the long table, body and head half-faced away but listening nonetheless. The room was so silent, even Rachel's low murmuring tone was not difficult to hear. "I saw you go on a mission to find Thanos, to kill him and find the stones to use them to get everyone back."

"And do we succeed?" Steve asked, pulling his hand from his mouth as he spoke, where it had been poised in concentration.

Rachel hesitated. An image of Thor's axe swinging to Thanos' head flashed before her eyes. "I saw Thor kill Thanos." There was a collective air of relief dispersed around the room, bar from Rachel and one other person.

"But?" Fury wisely prompted.

"By then, Thanos had destroyed the stones so his actions could not be undone." Rachel carefully answered.

Tony let out a loud exhale of frustration, and loudly scraped his seat back, as he stood from his seat; "I'm sorry, I was under the impression when I was chased after by a flock of agents that you knew how we could _stop _this?" Tony crocked in his head in annoyance and irritation. "So far, I'm not hearing anything like that."

Rachel pursed her lips, holding back her own irritated retort, and turned her head away as Fury spoke; "Sit back down and let her finish, Stark."

"I didn't say I could _stop _this from happening,"—Rachel answered, doing her best to keep herself collected as she spoke—"I said I know how to stop _him_—Thanos."

"You mean this supposed axe Thor wields—the very person you told us to be dead an hour ago?" Tony retorted, mockingly. "I'm sorry,"—Tony held up his hands at the firm stares pointed his way from all directions—"But I seem to be the only sane one here to be pointing out the obvious. It doesn't add up. How do we know she's not just suffering from some kind of brain abnormality that's making her see these 'visions'." Tony air-quoted the last word with his hands. "How can we believe everything she is saying?"

"Well you're here, Tony, and you're the one that called me so you must believe it." Steve retorted.

Tony and Steve gave each other a long hard, angry stare.

"That's enough,"—Fury tiredly said in a hard, unwavering tone—"I don't need a Berlin 2.0 in here, thank you."

Rachel quietly watched the exchange between the two heroes, before turning to look at Tony; "Are you finished?" Rachel asked, coolly. Tony merely cocked his brow in response. Rachel rolled her eyes and continued; "I never said Thor was dead. I said I had no idea if he survived. Apparently he did." Rachel added, in a lighter tone of voice. She glanced back to the others, continuing where she left off before Tony's interruption; "The stones may be destroyed, but at some point in future—sometime after Thanos is killed—I see you go back in time to get the stones and use them in the future to change what happened." Rachel said to Steve and then glanced to Tony. "I saw both of you travel back." she added, as she remembers the older-looking Tony and Steve both dressed in white suits and helmets.

"If we don't have the stones to travel back, how we do we do it?" Steve asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

Rachel licked her lips nervously. "Are you still in touch with the hero you call Ant Man?"

-:-

**2018**

San Francisco, California

**-:-**

"Good Morning, San Francisco! Today we will be a _beautiful _day of blue skies and high temperatures of 89 degrees that will last throughout the day. I'm telling you, folks—today is the day to grab your bathing suits, and head to the beach, because it's going to be a great one . . ."

The overly perky weatherman, with a little too much fake-tan and teeth-whitener, disappeared from the screen, replaced by a panel of middle-aged women and over-done hairdos. Lounging on his couch, Scott Lang threw the remote with a heavy sigh, and grabbed the half-eaten bag of Cheetos from beside him, inhaling a fist-full into his mouth. The orange dust sprinkled down onto his stained grey tee, and clung to the untamed beard around his lips. He looked to the coffee-table, where he had rested his outstretched leg—on said leg was a black device strapped to his ankle, the red light blinking tauntingly at him.

"What you looking at?" Scott grumbled to the device, before reaching forward to snatch the half-drunk bottle of beer that was positioned an inch or two from his leg on the table, swigging several gulps, to only pull away with a sound of disgust. "Eugh! It's warm." He looked disgruntled at the bottle, licking his lips in distaste.

He heaved himself from the couch and ambled over to the fridge, placing the half-drunken beer into the fridge, and produced another half-drunk bottle from shelf above, sighing in content as he felt the cool liquid hit the back of his throat. "Now _that _is what I'm talking about."

Months into the house arrest and it was not treating Scott Lang so well. There was only so many Netflix series you can watch, _twice, _before it got too old. Cabin fever had long kicked in.

Thankfully Cassie's weekly visits was one of the few things that gave Scott something to look forward to at the end of every tediously long, dragged out week cooped up inside—that and the next episode release of Game of Thrones. Damn, that shit was good.

Thankfully, after his house-arrest conviction, Maggie didn't put a stop to the visits; she and Paxton seemed to see that seeing Cassie was the one of the few things getting him through his sentence. And in Maggie's mind, being convicted for being Ant-Man was better than being convicted for robbery.

Of course, Scott would get visits from Luis, Kurt and Dave—but otherwise they were busy spreading the word about X-Con Security Consultants, meeting the clients, whilst Scott was forced to operate from behind the scenes, at his home, which took up very little of his time.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Scott blinked out of his reverie and turned towards the door, where through the hazed glass, he could see a figure at his doorstep. He furrowed his brows in confusion, as he saw possibly another two figures behind the one standing directly in front of the door. _God, was it Tuesday already?_ Scott thought, brow crinkled, as he assumed government agents were showing up for their usual weekly routine of scanning his anklet. Shoving the bottle back into the fridge, Scott slowly headed for the door as there was another knock at the door.

"Don't worry, I am _still _here—_unfortunately._" Scott added with a dry drawl as he swung the door opening, revealing three suited agents. "Hey, I haven't seen you three before. Where's Agent Woo?"

The middle-aged agent, who looked to be roughly in his late-40s to early 50s, pulled his sunglasses from his face, tucking them inside his suit-jacket. "Scott Lang?"

Scott looked warily between the three agents. ". . . Yes?" he slowly responded.

"My name is Phil Coulson, I am the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D—please may we come in?"

"Urr, I don't know . . ."—Scott hesitated—". . . wait, SHIELD—I thought they was destroyed like years ago by Captain America?"

"Not quite. May we continue this conversation inside, Mr. Lang?"

Scott Lang didn't release his grip on the door. "Look, I don't know if you know this, but I'm on house arrest and constant surveillance. I can't really be seen _meddling _in anyway." Scott peered over the agents' shoulders, eyes searching for the usual agent staked outside his townhouse, watching every movement, but saw nothing but the usual parked cars of his neighbors.

"The agent sign-posted to watch you has been dispatched on an urgent call-in. He won't be back for a couple of hours." Agent Coulson answered. "Mr. Lang, I'm afraid this matter is of extreme urgency—and, might I say, a lot more serious than your current house arrest status. We are currently dealing with a threat-to-the-universe situation and we really could do with your help."

Scott Lang stared at the agent before finally stepping back from the door to let the three agents inside. "Yeah, well, that's what they all say—and if I get caught, I'm saying you guys held me at gunpoint, got it?"

Agent Coulson gave Scott a kind smile. "Thank you."

Scott rolled his eyes and stepped aside, letting the three agents through the door and closing it behind them with a final look out onto the street for any lurking agents. "Listen," Scott said, as he turned to the three agents. "Whatever your problem is, I won't be able to help—I destroyed the suit after…"—Scott cleared his throat uncomfortably—"… y'know, Germany."

"That's a shame," Agent Coulson said. "A technologically advanced suit like that would have been of great benefit. However, I'm afraid we're looking for someone more important than you and your suit, Mr Lang." It didn't take long for Scott to figure out which certain wanted individuals they were after.

Scott crossed his arms defensively across his chest. "I've already told Agent Woo and every other federal agent that has come by; I haven't seen Hank or Hope Pym in over two years. I'm sorry, Director Coulson, I'm afraid I can't help you with this one,"—Scott reached for the doorknob, opening the door a fraction, only for it to be snapped shut again by one of the agents pressing the door closed with their hand—"Hey! Look, I have done my time—_two years _of house arrest—I'm days away from freedom. I won't let you guys get me involved in something that could mess this up. Now if you don't mind, I have a lot of _Keeping Up with the Kardashians_ to catch up on. Kylie Jenner is finally announcing her pregnancy." Scott glared at the three men, gesturing to the door.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lang," Coulson explained calmly. "I'm afraid this really is matter of life-or-death. We _need _Hank Pym to save the world."

"Even if I did—_which I don't_—have a way to contact Hank Pym, there is _no way _he's going to co-operate with SHIELD of all people—he hates you guys."

Agent Coulson sighed. "He will when I explain to him that an alien invasion is about to destroy Earth and Hank Pym has the technology to stop it."

Scott Lang stared at the Director blankly for a long pause. "Huh," Scott blinked. "It really is a life-or-death situation—I thought you were just being overly dramatic."

**-:-**

**2018**

S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Undisclosed Location

-:-

_A frightened young Rachel was in a interrogation room, dressed in a white hospital gown, sat behind a table with wires attached to her chest, palms and head. Her wide eyes darted around the room, breathing elevated as she sat alone in the room. She wanted her parents. She wanted her room, her bed. She wanted to go home. As she continued to panic, a voice suddenly filled the room through the overcome. _

"_Rachel? I need you to calm down." The professionally toned doctor said through the overcome._

_Rachel continued to look around the room, eyes wide and breath quickened. "I-I want my M-Mommy." There was a momentary pause before the hum of the overcome being switched on was heard and a familiar voice filled the room. Rachel's panic froze as she heard her mother's soothing voice, telling her to stay calm. "Mommy? Where are you? I can't see you Mommy."_

"_I'm here, sweetie, behind the glass." Rachel's eyes darted to the reflective glass, squinted as she tried to make out her mother, but could only see her own reflection. "You're doing really well, sweetie, we're so proud of you. Now, I just need you to listen to what the doctor tells you to do—can you do that?" Rachel hesitated but the nodded slowly. "Good girl. I love you Rachel."_

"_I love you Mommy." Rachel spoke, as the door opened; Phil Coulson, Nicholas Fury and a lab-coat donned doctor slipped inside. As the two SHIELD agents settled themselves opposite her, the doctor moved around the room, checking the wires attached to her body, and also the camera that was set up across the room—clicking the button that made the red light come on. _

"_Hello Rachel," Phil Coulson smiled at her. "How are you feeling?"_

_Rachel stared up at the two agents, eyes wide and fearful, but after side-glancing the reflective glass she answered lowly; "Hungry."_

_Phil continued to smile at her softly. "Of course. Once we've finished here, we'll get you something to eat, OK? We just want you to show us what you can do. Your Mommy and Daddy tell us you're very special." Rachel hesitated before shrugging in response. "If you don't mind, we would love to hear a little more about your drawings," Phil opened the file he had been holding as he arrived, pulling out an array of drawings young Rachel had drawn, and spread them across the room. "They're very beautiful drawings."_

"_Thank you." Rachel whispered._

"_Do you often draw what you see?"_

_Rachel slowly nodded._

"_Can you tell us what this is, Rachel?" Fury spoke for the first time, pointing to a picture of a man in a red and yellow suit. _

_Rachel leant up to get a better look of the picture. "That's Iron Man." She said, sitting back. "He's my favourite." Rachel smiled, the gaps of where her two front teeth were missing evident as her lips parted. "He falls from the sky through a big hole." Rachel said with furrowed brows. "It's OK, the Hulk saves him."_

"_And who is Hulk?"_

_Rachel glanced at Fury cautiously, before sitting back up in her chair, eyes moving over the pictures before pointing a small finger at the large green man (or monster) with purple shorts. "Hulk." She explains, and then points to a drawn man next to Hulk, with curly black hair. "Bruce."_

"_Are they . . . friends?" Phil asked. _

_Rachel giggled, shaking her head. "No, silly."_

"_They . . . aren't friends?" _

_Rachel shrugged, almost sadly, as she stared at the drawing. "Not really."_

_Phil paused for a moment, looking down at the pictures before pushing a drawing of a man dressed in blue, red and white. "Who is this Rachel?"_

_Rachel rested her head in the palm of her hand and stared at the picture closely. "Captain America." She said before adding; "Steve."_

"_And you see him, with these people?" Fury asks, pointing to Iron Man and Hulk. "In the future?"_

_Rachel nods, oblivious to the stares the two agents give each other. _

"_OK, Rachel, if you don't mind I'd like to see what you can do. Your Mommy told me that when you touch someone's hand, you can see things—is that true?"_

"_Mmmhmm." Rachel hummed. _

"_Would you show me?" Phil requested, laying out his open palm across the table. _

_Rachel pursed her lips, looking between the hand and Phil. "What the magic word?" she responded, eyes slightly narrowed. _

_Phil's lips twitched. "Would you show me, _please_?"_

_Rachel's lips curved into a grin. "OK!" she said, reaching forward to grasp her hand. _

Rachel blinked as the memory dissolved before her eyes as she looked around the interrogation room, not too dissimilar to the interrogation room she had placed in many times during her time with SHIELD as a child. She sat at the table, her duffel bag on top of the surface, and tapped her booted-foot against the floor. She had been brought here by Maria, whom left moments later telling her to wait for something to collect her.

A day and a half had passed since her meeting with Steve, Tony, Fury, Coulson and Maria. After that, Rachel had been excused from the room—no doubt for them to discuss what she had just divulged to them—and brought to her living quarters for the night by an agent. None of the others visited her for the rest of the night, after she was brought to the room, she was only visited by a agent twice; the first time to bring her something to eat, and the second time to bring her some of her belongings from her flat (that mainly consisted of her clothes). She had asked the agent for her phone, so she could contact Blaire and Lucas, but her request was ignored.

At some point, Rachel had managed to drift off after hours of staring at the ceiling in thought only to be awoken by Maria entering her room what felt like only minutes later (when matter-of-factly it was eight hours later), with the request that she gets ready to leave within the hour. Rachel showered, ate the food that was left for her on her bed whilst she washed, wondering where on Earth she was being taken to (In very Maria fashion, she didn't linger long enough to make conversation). She dressed in black jeans, a long-sleeved grey Henley, zip-up black hooded jumper and her black Doc Martins. By the time she had ran a brush through her hair, Maria had returned and she was being escorted to the interrogation room where she was once again left to her own devices.

So when the door reopened, what felt like hours later, Rachel groaned "_finally_" as Maria, an agent and finally _Tony Stark _stepped inside.

"I had no idea you were so excited to see me." Tony smirked and winked, watching as her cheeks bled red in response. "Relax, Belle, I have come to save you from your imprisonment and take you far far away!"

Rachel glanced at Maria confused.

"Mr. Stark will be taking you to the Avengers headquarters, where you will stay for now onwards." Maria explained.

"OK. . ."—Rachel spoke slowly—"Where are the others?" she asked, thinking of Steve, Fury, and Coulson. "Will they be meeting us there?"

"Not yet." Was Maria's curt answer.

Rachel sighed, deciding there was no point—getting information from Maria was like drawing blood from a stone—and obediently collected her things. Tony gave her a very Tony-Stark smirk before disappearing out the door as she approached them. Rachel followed Maria and Tony, with an agent close behind her, along wide windowless corridors and several flights of stairs (which made her wonder whether they were underground), before they reached the doors heavily armed by guards that opened the doors wordlessly. Maria nodded to the guards whilst Tony strolled through obliviously.

Rachel felt a smile pick at her lips as she felt fresh air against her cheeks. As she suspected, they appeared to be standing outside a large bunker entrance and on a large squared tarmac—several yards ahead was a jet that clearly read '_STARK Industries_' in bold letters on the side. The engines were spinning, readying for take off, making the air attack her hair and clothes aggressively. Tony strode confidently across the tarmac to the jet, ignoring the help that was offered to him by the agent, and disappeared inside without another word. Rachel on the other hand, gratefully accepted the help from the agent, who held her at the crook of her clothed arm onto the jet.

With one last look at Maria, who watched them from outside the entrance, Rachel placed herself opposite Tony who was already absorbed by his phone and began fiddling with the seatbelt.

"Who will be there?" Rachel asked, after the doors began to shut, hoping to use the question as a slight distraction of the aircraft lifting from the ground. Rachel had never been a confident flyer.

"The usual—Pepper, Happy, Vis, Rhodey." Tony answered, without looking up from his phone.

"Do they know?" Rachel asked, feeling a nerves in her stomach that she wasn't sure if it was because of the flying or the fact she was going to the Avengers Headquarters.

Tony merely hummed in response, still engaged in his phone, confirming that he had no interest in making conversation with her. Rachel inhaled quietly and turned to look outside the window—they were miles high into the sky now, the bunker now a small square on the ground, and slowly disappearing into the distance. Rachel rolled her head back and closed her eyes, trying to calm the knots in her stomach.

Considering Rachel did not know the location of the SHIELD HQ, and as she somehow drifted off at some point during the flight, she did not know how much time had passed when she was shaken awake by the jet landing with a slight bump. Her eyes snapped open and she looked outside the window to see Avengers HQ—a large, beautiful and modern, white building that was built in replacement of the Avengers Tower in New York City after it was destroyed during the events of Ultron. For a moment, Rachel was flawed; after all these years of seeing the Avengers in her visions, it felt surreal that she was in a jet with _Tony Stark_, about the enter the Avengers Headquarters.

"Oh good, sleeping Beauty has finally awoken,"—Tony sung a monotone tone—"Did you know you snore? Quite adorable really, here, listen" Tony tapped his phone and a soft, crackling noise of snoring could be heard over the sound of the jet being shut down.

Rachel glared at the Avenger in disbelief. "Did you really record me _snoring_? Did you not have anything better to do?"

"No, I got bored of throwing almonds at you an hour in." Tony shrugged.

Rachel glanced down to find, low and behold, almonds splattered across her body. "Are you _five_?" Rachel huffed, brushing the almonds from her body.

"I'd like to see it as young at heart." Tony responded with his signature wink and smirk, jumping to his feet (only Tony Stark wouldn't bother putting on a seatbelt during a flight), and jumped out of the jet.

Rachel muttered and cursed under her breath as she slowly followed, fiddling with her seatbelt and grabbing her duffel-bag. Tony was already half-way to the building by the time Rachel feet met the ground. She smiled and thanked the pilot that helped her down, before following after the Avenger, deciding to take her own time and not give Tony the satisfaction of running after her. _Stupid tin man, _she thought to herself, as Tony's figure disappeared into the building.

When she finally stepped foot into the building, Tony was no where to be seen, but a strawberry-haired woman waited to greet her. Rachel didn't have to be psychic to know who the beautiful woman was.

"Hi, Rachel. I'm . . ."

"Pepper Potts. I know who you are." Rachel shook her hand, with a friendly smile that she hoped matched Pepper's. "I've seen you on the news a handful of times." Rachel added after a moment's thought, it was evident by Pepper's uneasy expression, she knew of Rachel's abilities.

Pepper vividly relaxed and nodded. "Of course. Well, as Tony—the ever welcoming host—has decided to make himself scarce, I'll give you a little tour and show you to your room."

Rachel smiled gratefully. "Thank you."

-:-

**2018**

Avengers Compound, Upstate New York

-:-

"Yes sir, I'll keep you informed."

James "Rhodey" Rhodes ended the transmission with the clicker, watching as the holograms of Senator Ross and the other cabinet members seated around the board table, disappeared before his eyes. As they disappeared, Rhodey leant back in his chair was a sigh, shutting his eyes and rubbing his face with his bare hand. Reopening his eyes, he glanced at his watch to see two hours had passed since the meeting with Senator Ross began.

The meeting was of no importance—the usual fortnightly meeting that Rhodey signed up for, to give updates on their progress on tracking down Rogers, Romanoff and the others. Word from independent overseas sources had reported to Ross about movement in Portugal. A cargo ship had been detained at a Portuguese port for heavy human trafficking and drug smuggling. The men aboard had mentioned to officials about a run in they had had with "Captain America" and others. Of course this meant Ross wanted Rhodey to check it out, and Rhodey wasn't in the position to argue this, despite knowing what they now know.

It was agreed between Tony, Vision, Fury and all other participants in communication with the Avengers Compound and clued in with the _Thanos _threat, that it would be business as usual to the public eye. Ross was not someone they wanted, or needed, to get involved with this—which meant keeping up appearances that Rhodey and Stark were not in communication with Steve Rogers.

Rhodey pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the stiffness in his back, as he moved across the room—the Stark contraption clamped from his waist down, helping him move across the room.

All things considered, Rhodey had healed from the incident in Berlin, bar regaining the use of his limps without the assistance of Stark tech. Rhodey had come to terms with his new disability; even before he became War Machine, as a solider, Rhodey had accepted the possible risk of death or injury on the job. It was the ramifications of his new disability that were harder to overcome; Rhodey knew that, along with what transpired in Russia, had put the nail in the coffin of Tony and Steve's friendship. Rhodey didn't blame Steve for his injuries, but he knew Tony still did, by the far off look in his eyes or clenching of his jaw as he watched Rhodey learn to walk again.

As Rhodey headed for the kitchen, intended on making himself a strong cup of coffee to dwell over what had transpired over the meeting with Ross, he became aware of people already there. He recognized one of the voices as Pepper, the other voice he did not recognize but had an inkling of whom it may belong to. Tony had texted him earlier that morning to clue him in on their new resident, however when he walked into the kitchen, to face the psychic that had changed their lives so suddenly, what he was met with was not what he expected.

"Rhodey!" Pepper greeted him as he walked into the kitchen. "This is Rachel James."

Pepper was sitting at the island, on one of the bar stools, with Rachel beside her—the both of them nursing cups of coffee that had been served by Vision, whom was donned in a jumper and slacks. Rachel was young, younger than Rhodey had imagined—early 20s at the most—with a head of brown curls, and a youthful heart-shaped face. The roundness of her cheeks, fair skin and small slender stature contributed to her youthful appearance. She was young enough to be his daughter. Yet, her green eyes told a different story—wise and pained, no doubt from her less than kind past that Tony had briefly mentioned. The pained look in her eyes was something Rhodey had seen before in eyes of many members of the Avengers—Tony and Steve more particularly.

"Hello." Rachel spoke, softly.

Rhodey nodded in greeting. "Nice to meet you, Rachel."

"I was just talking the opportunity to trial my barista skills on a professional barista, here." Vision spoke, gesturing to Rachel with a graceful wave of the hand.

Rachel hummed and nodded. "You're not bad. You've definitely nailed the froth ratio perfectly."

Vision smiled in triumph, before turning to Rhodey. "May I tempt you to a latte or cappuccino, Rhodey?"

"I'll stick to my black coffee, Vis." Rhodey said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Where's Tony?"

"Where do you think?" Pepper retorted. "At this rate, I'm starting to think I'll have to make the lab the wedding venue."

Rachel and Rhodey chuckled in response. Rhodey's gaze curiously moved to Rachel, taking the moment to evaluate the young girl, who looked slightly tense but otherwise at ease with her surroundings. It made Rhodey wonder how Rachel's visions worked—had she already seen this before? Did she already know what he was going to say to her before he had even walked into the room?

"My visions usually concentrate on a specific event in future,"—Rachel spoke, as if reading his mind—"it's only when I touch someone that I know someone's whole future. But even so, it's mainly snippets—like watching a montage of someone's life played out on a TV screen; the milestones or the small things that hold significance to that person's future."

Rhodey blinked. "Did I speak out loud?"

Rachel smiled and shook her head. "No, but after a while I'm used to that look on people's face." She calmly answered, taking a sip from her mug.

"Interesting," Vision spoke. "I myself have wondered how your visions work. Do you have any kind of control over your power?"

Rachel shook her head solemnly. "No. It's apart of me, but I cannot control or choose what I see. Similar to that stone in your head I imagine." Rachel murmured, nodding to the gleaming yellow gem in the centre of Vision's forehead. Vision traced a finger over the Mind Stone thoughtfully. Rachel looked away after a long while, muttering her apologies; "Sorry. I didn't mean to stare, it's just . . ." Rachel winced and shook her head. "Never mind."

"You've seen what it can—and will—do." Vision knowingly answered.

Rachel glanced at him with wide eyes. "Yes." She whispered.

Rhodey watched the somber expression flitter across Vision's face. "We won't let them get to you, Vis."

"Thank you,"—Vision said—"However I don't think it will be that easy. The stone has been warning me for a while,"—Vision tapped the stone with a long red figure—"And now I know what it has been warning me of, I think it's time I come to accept my future."

From the corner of Rhodey's eye, Rachel lowered her head to look away from Vision. "We'll speak to Tony, and the others, figure a way of getting that thing out of you." Rhodey pointed to the stone. "You're one of us now, Vis, we ain't letting you go that easily." Rhodey clapped a hand on Vision's shoulder. "Not without a fight."

-:-

**2018**

San Francisco, California

-:-

"Coulson will meet us at the location, sir." Maria Hill addressed Fury from beside him. Fury nodded, a hand gripping the wheel, as they sped along the highway approaching San Francisco in the rental car they had acquired during their journey. "Take the next exit." Maria instructed, Fury smoothly maneuvered the car with one hand, driving off of the highway smoothly, onto a single-lane road. In his other hand, he rolled a square object in his hand, over and over. "What is that, sir?" Maria asked, a minute or two later—who had noticed the object in Fury's hand on-and-off over the past few days.

Fury looked down at the small pager in his hands, a thumb moving over the buttons at the bottom, inhaling deeply before looking back at the road once more. "My only means of contacting someone." Fury vaguely said, exhaling the breath he inhaled as he spoke.

"Will this person will be able to help with what is about to happen?" Maria asked.

Fury slowly nodded. "Definitely."

"Then why the hesitation sir, if you don't mind me asking?"

Fury shook his head. "It's been a _long _time." he chuckled humorlessly. "This is meant for _emergencies _only."

Maria paused for a moment. "I think a world invasion that is doomed to wipe out half of the universe's population is classed as an emergency, don't you think sir?" Maria watched Fury carefully. "Whoever it is, we'll need every help we can get."

There was a pregnant pause from Fury before the car was pulled to the side, pulling to a halt on one of the lay-bys. Fury stared at the pager for a long moment before sighing, pressing a button, watching the white star, red and blue stripes appear across the screen. "Here goes nothing."

* * *

**A/N: **I hope you enjoyed Chapter Four! What is everyone thinking/feeling about the story so far? Feedback is always welcome – good or bad.

P.S. what were everyone's thoughts on the Disney D23 announcements? And the Sony/Disney drama with Spiderman? My heart is broken for Tom Holland! But I can't wait for Falcon and the Winter Solider and WandaVision :D

P.P.S how do people feel about this becoming a Bucky/OC story?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary:** What if Captain Marvel wasn't the only secret Nick Fury had kept from the world? In 2001, Nick Fury encounters a girl with an extraordinary power to see the future. Now, the threat of Thanos looms closer, maybe Rachel James is the only one with the power to stop it.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Everything, apart from my OC, belongs to Marvel.

**Author's Note: **Hola! Thank you to the great response from the last chapter. It's great to hear you guys are enjoying the story so far. Enjoy Chapter Five!

* * *

**Chapter Five**

-:-

**2018**

San Francisco, California

-:-

Scott Lang drummed his fingers on the door handle of the sleek black armored four-by-four, anxiously peering over his shoulder to look out of the tinted rear window, looking for any potential followers, before turning back with a heavy exhale to calm his bubbling nerves. In his head, thoughts were spinning (_What if they were caught_? _What if Agent Woo found out he was missing?_) round and around his head as they drove through the city towards the outskirts, further and further from his home. He felt his stomach clench as he thought of his daughter's disappointed face if he were to be caught.

"Relax,"—Coulson spoke from his side, as if reading his mind, glancing at him with a knowing look—"You're not going to get caught. We'll have you back at your house before you know it."

Scott hesitated before nodding, wondering if he was an idiot for trusting a SHIELD Director, who wasn't that Fury bloke that Scott always thought was the real Director of SHIELD (apparently not). He subconsciously reached down, scratching the now bare skin where his anklet once sat for the past two years. It felt odd, to move his foot, and no longer feel the extra weight attached to his foot. He shook his head, returning back to the situation at hand; "So this alien invasion . . . _thing_, does Stark and Cap know about it?" Coulson glanced at him and Scott chuckled dryly. "Stupid question; of course they do." He said with the shake of his head. "When there's an alien invasion, you don't come to Ant-Man first." He laughed.

"You do when he has the means to help stop it." Coulson responded with a quirk of a brow.

Scott nodded slowly. "Yeah . . . this supposed _tech _that Hank Pym has—you haven't explained what it is or how exactly you know he has it. Hank Pym has purposefully made himself and his inventions invisible to SHIELD for _years_. For the past two years, they have been in hiding—no thanks to me—not even the government has had a single lead or tip off." Scott awkwardly scratched the back of his head as he remembered the last words exchanged between himself and Hope, back in 2016, after the Germany fiasco.

"We have our sources." Was Coulson's elusive answer.

Scott felt himself roll his eyes in mild irritation. "Look, I'm sure this mysterious vibe you've got going works in most cases, but this ain't gonna work now. If you think you're—you, a SHIELD agent—are going to get through to Hank Pym _without _my help, you're going to be disappointed. And I can't help you until I know what's going on here, OK? My freedom, Cassie, my already _non-existent _relationship with Hank and Hope Pym—they already hate me after what happened in Berlin, OK? There's a reason I haven't spoken to them in _two years_—is on the line here. You've gotta give me something to work with, 'cause I'm telling you—Hope and Hank won't take lightly to seeing me with some SHEILD agents."

Coulson paused for a long moment of time, an internal debate evident behind his eyes, before speaking once more with a serious look in his eye. "We have reason to believe that Hank Pym has unintentionally developed the technology to travel in time."

Scott froze, and when he did finally regain control of his body, he opened and closed his mouth, words failing him until finally: "E-Excuse me?"

Before Coulson could answer, the car came to a slow halting stop. They had arrived at the co-ordinates that Hank and Hope Pym had provided after the very awkward and tense phone conversation with Scott. The phone-call had ended abruptly, but was followed twenty-minutes later by an address via text. Scott looked around to see they were in some back street off an industrial estate, surrounded by tall warehouse buildings and not another human in sight—if you don't count a rental car parked a few yards away, that had caught Scott and apparently Coulson's attention. Coulson exited the vehicle alone; the agent driving the car remained silently in the front, surveying the area. Over their shoulders, Scott could see movement from the rental car, but could not see the faces of who was exiting the car.

Scott looked down at his watch, noting there was still minutes to spare before their agreed meeting time, before looking down the street for Hank, Hope or any federal agent that might have caught on were in sight. Nervously, Scott looked back to the front, where he could see Coulson moving to speak to the owners of the rental cars—more SHIELD agents, Scott presumed. _Hank and Hope are really going to hate me after this, _he thought to himself with a sigh, but then shrugged when the additional thought of, _I suppose they hate me already, _ran through his head.

Cautiously, Scott stepped out of the car, walking up to where Coulson stood in front of the car, hands stuffed into his suit pockets as he watched the two people step out of the car. "I know you,"—Scott blurted out as he watched Nick Fury and Maria Hill step out of the car—"You're Nick Fury and . . ."—Scott looked at Maria Hill, but couldn't quite place her name—". . . I'm sorry; I can't remember your name. But you're kickass."

Fury and Maria gave one un-amused glance to Scott before turning to Coulson. "High risk bringing him along, don't you think?" Fury said to Coulson. "Last thing we need is the CIA on our ass, getting in our way."

"It won't be a problem." Was Coulson's answer. Scott thought of the SHIELD agent that was currently sitting at home, placing out his usual routine of sitting on his couch all day watching reruns of Judge Judy, to keep the feds and Agent Woo off their back. "Besides, we'll need him if we're going to get through to Pym." Fury thought through Coulson's word before nodding curtly. "How is she?" Coulson asked.

"With Stark." Maria answered.

"Who's with Stark?" Scott asked curiously to the nameless female they refer to.

Fury gave him a side-glance, but didn't answer his question. "When will they be here?"

"Any minute." Coulson answered. "If they aren't already here."

From the corner of his eye, Scott watched Maria Hill bat the air with a hand, a barely distinguishable buzz in the air, and smirked knowingly. "Oh, they're here, alright. Hi Hope."

In that moment, a figure donned in a yellow and grey suit appeared a few feet from Maria. Fury and Maria reacted instinctively, reaching and withdrawing their firearms, pointing at the figure. Hope, face obscured by her helmet, grabbed Maria—being the closest to her—by her wrist, twisting her arm and throwing her to the ground.

"Woah, woah,"—Scott rushed forward, between Hope and Fury, whose finger was poised on the trigger—"Calm down, everyone. No-one is here to hurt anyone. Let's put the guns . . . away, shall we?"

"Debatable." Maria grumbled, as she pulled herself to her feet, dusting herself off and rubbing the spot where Hope had twisted her arm in the process.

"What the Hell is this, Lang?" Scott turned to see Hope Pym, pulling off her helmet and revealing her face. For a moment Scott had forgotten how long it had been since he had seen her—and how pretty her eyes were. Her dark hair was longer and her eyes were greener—if possible—but Scott quickly put that down to the glint of anger in gaze. "SHIELD, really? We always knew were a thief, a bit of an idiot, but we never took you for a snitch." She spat, angrily.

"Wait!" Scott shouted to Hope, as she put on her helmet and began to press her button to activate the suit. "This isn't what it looks like, Hope."

"Oh really." Hope sarcastically answered through the helmet, anger reflecting in her eyes that were visible through the yellow screen. "Because it looks like you're here with three SHIELD agents."

"No!" Scott answered. "Well, _yes,_"—Through the screen of her helmet, Hope visibly rolled her eyes, finger itching closer to the button—"Wait, please, Hope. SHIELD needs yours and Hank's help."

Hope's eyes flickered over his shoulder to Fury, Coulson and Hill. "You can't know us at all if you honestly think we would help SHIELD." Hope looked back to Scott. "Do you have the suit or was that just a ploy to get us here all along?" Scott hesitated once again. Hope stance visibly became stiffer with anger. "Do us a favour, Lang, don't contact us again." Before Scott could shout for Hope to stop, the button was pressed and a second later, Hope had shrunk—the distinctive sound of her suit buzzing away could faintly be heard.

"Impressive suit." Coulson commented, looking around in vain for any sight of the suit.

"Well that went well." Fury dryly said, putting his gun away. "Whose idea was it to bring him again?" Fury pointed to Scott.

Scott shot the former head of SHIELD an irritated look. "Yeah, well, it was a Hell lot better than how you were gonna deal with it." Scott pointed to their hand arms exasperatedly. The agents merely shrugged in response. For a long pregnant pause, the four adults looked around as they tried to calculate their next move. "Can't you just get Tony Stark to, like, build this—_y'know_—time-machine? The guy's a genius." Scott said, his voice becoming lower as he mouthed 'time machine', eyes shifting from side-to-side.

"Doesn't work like that I'm afraid, and we have no idea what time we have left,"—Coulson answered calmly—"Stark is a genius, but quantum physics isn't exactly his forte. There is a reason Hank Pym is the best in the business. And besides, Hank Pym will create this by accident—no doubt whilst working on something else. We need Hank Pym."

"Well, it doesn't look like we're going to get him anytime soon." Hill answered, looking at her watch, before turning to address Coulson and Fury. "We should report back to base, maybe come up with a new strategy in the meantime—we still have another stone to locate."

Fury considered her words before nodding in agreement. But as Fury and Hill turned to return to their rental car, a voice spoke out;

"Come with me,"—a voice called from behind them. The four of them turned to see Hope Pym standing beside a warehouse door, helmet removed, a sombre expression on her features—"I'll take you to Hank Pym."

-:-

**2018**

Barton Residence, Missouri

-:-

It was one of those more frequent than none nights where Clint Barton remained awake, late into the night; long after his family had gone to sleep. At some point, after turning from staring up at the ceiling for god-knows how long, he turned to glance at the clock to see 3:23 blinking back at him in dazzling green luminescent lights. At that point, Clint carefully removed himself from his bed—careful not to wake his sleeping wife beside him—before heading downstairs, and out of the house, grabbing his bow and quiver as he exited the back door.

As soon as he exited onto the porch, and the cool night air pressed against his skin, he paused and inhaled, taking a second to absorb the tranquillity the night-time blanketed over the farm. Clint wouldn't be wrong to say his house arrest had been a welcome blessing in disguise—he had eventually become accustomed to the new weight on his ankle from his tracking device—but he would also be lying if he said he didn't miss it all. Being an agent, and latterly an Avenger, had been a large part of his life, but as was his family. These two years had been the happiest they had ever had for the Barton family, bar the days where the federal agents came knocking for their check-ins. Those were usually difficult days for Clint and the family.

For the most part, Clint was happy—but also conflicted, which kept him awake on nights like this.

He jogged down the steps, walking towards the target that he was strapped to the large oak tree several yards from their house. It was where Clint had began teaching Lila to shoot, but it was also where he would come, when sleep prevailed him on nights like these. Clint set down his quiver, and set to work—shooting arrows repeatedly, never missing once, until eventually his quiver was empty, but his urge was still not itched.

He headed to the target, beginning to retrieve his arrows. As his hand curled around the arrow, he paused, hearing a presence behind him that was too large to be an animal. Almost as soon as he paused and acknowledged the noise, he continued to pull the arrows from the target. But as his hands curled around the last arrow, he strikes—arrow and bow poised and facing his opponent in a flash.

"Clint." His opponent greeted.

Clint's bow remained still, a slip of the finger and the arrow would shoot, but his finger remained steady and his unwavering eye tied to the target. "Nat." he finally spoke, addressing the red-headed former-assassin. Finally, he dropped the bow and retracted the arrow, approaching her slowly. "You're slacking. I heard you coming. I expected better from an international fugitive."

Natasha smirked. Her grey-green eyes seem to glint in the moonlight. "I wasn't sure if two years under house arrest had made you rusty. I am pleasantly surprised."

Slowly, the two friends met in the middle and embraced each other tightly. "What are you doing here?" Clint pulled away, tightly grasping Natasha's forearms with his hands. "You should know not to be here. I'm being watched like a hawk, no pun intended." Clint said with a glimmer of a smirk on his lips, at the end. As happy as he was to see Natasha, he wasn't wrong how he was being watched. One night, he went for a run around some of the neighboring fields; when he returned, as the sun came up, he found the feds waiting outside his house—they had thought he was trying to run.

Natasha's expression became sombre, her plump lips pulling down into a tight line. "We have a problem."

"We?" Clint repeated, feeling himself tense as he acknowledged her stance. He was one of the few people that could read Natasha like an open book, and could often gauge what emotion she was feeling.

"Hi Clint." Clint turned around to see none other than Steve Rogers, now sporting a heavy beard, Sam Wilson and Wanda approaching him. They were dressed down, but in combat gear nonetheless. It had been Steve Rogers that had greeted him, coming forward to shake his hand in a warm welcome. Clint happily accepted the hand, not quite matching Steve's in strength, but squeezed it with enough tightness in hope to convey his happiness to see him. "It's good to see you – you look well. I wish we were here under better circumstances. Do you have somewhere we can talk, in private?"

Clint carefully looked between the four fugitives, and their serious expressions, before nodding slowly. "This way." He gestured for the four of them to follow him towards the large shadowed silhouette of the barn a few yards from the house.

-:-

**2018**

Avengers Compound, Upstate New York

-:-

_Rachel stood in a warzone. She could not distinguish where exactly she was, as she was surrounded by ruins, rubble and chaos, but she could recognise the familiar faces of the Avengers (along with other people she did not know, but rallied with the Avengers nonetheless) amongst the battlefield—attacking the disgusting creatures she knew as the Chitauri from the battle of Manhattan with all their might. And as she looked up, the sky was alive with bloodshed—large Leviathans and a spaceship filled the sky, explosions coming from the missiles the Iron Man fired, and more. She was apart from them, the closest person being was Rhodey who soared up above in his suit, blasting Chitauri left, right and centre. _

_Rachel looked down to see she was armed with some sort of blaster, and was covered in cuts, grime and dust. She could blatantly see from the tore in the left-hand side of her torso, that she was visibly injured judging by the blood and the shrapnel sticking out from her skin. Rachel swallowed and looked up again, her eyes moving back to the warzone, panic beginning to settle in as she realised how it looked like, whatever battle they were fighting, they were _loosing.

"What do you think?_"—a deep voice spoke to her, from behind her. A voice that caused her body to freeze and sent shivers down her spine—_"I have looked forward to this moment for so long. Beautiful, is it not?" _Rachel carefully turned her body, a small shriek escaping her lips and lifted the shaky hand that grasped the blaster tightly to point at the large purple figure that strode towards her without fear. _"Tell me, child, how does it feel, to see everything you have so desperately tried to prevent play out before your eyes, with nothing you can do to stop it?" _Thanos gestured to the battlefield that surrounded them, sadistic grin pulling at his lips. "_You are a psychic, are you not—how does the future look, Oracle?"

_Somehow, Rachel opened her mouth to repeat; "_Oracle_?_"

_Thanos halted mid-step, dropped his head to one side, and his eyes beginning to narrow at her confusion; then slowly, his lips turned into a menacing smirk. "_Marvellous." _Thanos muttered, with humour. "_My luck appears to be getting greater by the minute." _Rachel stumbled backwards, loosing her footing over the uneven ground of rubble, falling to the ground. She felt something sharp cut her hands as she attempted to brace her fall. _"I shall enjoy killing you very much._" Thanos raised his golden sword and swung to strike-_

Rachel awoke with a shrill scream, hands gripping her sheets, and sweat dripping down her body, soaking into her nightclothes. Panting, she blinked twice, and slowly began to absorb her new surroundings; the battlefield she once stood in, was now one of the many guest bedrooms in the Avengers Compound's living quarters. Rachel exhaled in a heavy sigh of relief, untangling her fists from the sheets—which were now torn in places from where her nails had broken through the fabric—and ran it through her damp, knotted hair.

"Miss James,"—a feminine, song-like voice with an Irish accent filled the room—"Vision would like to know if you require assistance."

Rachel blinked for a moment, confused by the overhead voice that had spoken to her from somewhere in the room, only to remember it belonged to FRIDAY, Tony Stark's AI. "E-Er, no, tell him thank you but . . . no thank you?" Rachel responded, cringing at her own awkward response. "Explain that it was only a nightmare and that I require no assistance." Rachel added quickly in explanation.

"Very well, Miss James."

After a few moments of silence, waiting for a response which never came, Rachel reached across the bed—grabbing the notepad that lay at her bedside. It was one of the few requests she had made when Pepper Potts showed her to her room hours ago, after a brief—yet mind-blowing—tour of the Avengers Compound in all its glory. Whether Pepper thought it was a strange request, she didn't question it, as when Rachel reappeared from her shower she found a leather bound journal on her bed next to some night clothes.

Rachel opened the journal to a fresh page, before scribbling; _People: Thanos and me. Location: Unknown. Battle. Timeline: Near future? Important Event: my death? _Rachel's hand shook as she wrote the last two words, before pausing the pen from the page, the words burning into her eyes. Rachel pulled back, turning her head away blinking, her heart beginning to thump in her chest as the image of Thanos swinging his duo-ended sword towards her with a menacingly joyous look on her face. Yet, another thought ran through her mind…

Oracle. Thanos had called Rachel "Oracle". And it was almost as if he knew her, or at least a version of her—a version of herself that she did not appear to be in that vision. "_How does it feel to see everything you have so desperately tried to prevent play out before your eyes…?_" Thanos' words repeated through her mind. Rachel looked downwards, her pen urgently beginning to tap on her pages beneath her, her mind trying to fathom what her vision had shown her. How far in the future did this vision take place? Or . . . at what point in time?

Rachel hastily wrote the word _Oracle, _circling it twice, in her notes before she threw the covers from her body and headed out of her room, as quietly as she could muster. The door opened freely, which for a split second, took her by surprise considering how heavily guarded and enclosed SHIELD had kept her for the past few days. Peering out of the door, Rachel noted how the corridor was dimly lit by the spotlights above, and completely empty, not a guard or person in sight. Rachel closely moved down the corridor, retracing her steps from yesterday with Pepper to the kitchen.

The kitchen was dark, darker than the corridors she had came from, apart from the dim lights underneath the sleek grey cabinets or the moonlight that seeped through the large windows. Rachel padded across the tiled flooring, the coolness of the floor welcomed by her bare feet, and began rummaging through the cabinets.

"Top left." a clear voice spoke. Rachel jumped, bagging her head against the cabinet door as she retracted. Wincing and rubbing her head, she turned to see Tony lounged across one of the large L-shaped couches, nursing a tumbler glass—whom she had not spotted there before, judging by how dark that part of the room was. And judging by his rumpled band t-shirt and slacks, he had yet to go to bed.

Rachel turned and slowly opened the cabinet he was motioning to. She opened the cabinet to see a number of whiskey bottles and closed it softly. "_Not_ what I was looking for." Rachel acknowledged. Tony looked at her questionably, as if to say '_Oh really?_'. Rachel sighed and said; "Do you have any cocoa?"

"What are you—_five?_" Tony repeated her words from earlier in the day. Rachel rolled her eyes in response. "Try bottom right," Tony suggested lamely. Rachel follows his instructions, exclaiming in delight when she pulled out a tin of cocoa, before looking at Tony with a bemused smile. "It's—or _was_—Wanda's." Tony said with a wave of a hand.

Rachel nodded, before beginning to get out the milk. "Would you like some?" Rachel asked over her shoulder.

Tony considered her question, before she shrugged and nodded. "Why not." He said, with a slight slur.

Rachel shook her head and chuckled. A slightly awkward silence (more on Rachel's behalf than Tony's, whom seemed absorbed in his glass and bottle of whiskey) fell between them as Rachel made two cups of cocoa, which was only filled by the sounds of the cocoa heating up or the clanging of Tony's glass as he poured more drink. Eventually, Rachel approached the Avenger with two steaming mugs, and their silence was broken.

"Thanks—ohff,"—Tony slipped slightly on the couch as he moved forward to pour some of the whiskey in the steaming mug—"What some?" he then said, holding the bottle out, with a slightly dazed look in his eye. Then, he quickly pulled the bottle back. "Wait, you're not, like, underage are you?"

Rachel held back a laugh. "I'm twenty-two. And no, thank you. Besides, I think you've finished it off." Rachel gestured to the empty bottle in his hand.

Tony looked downwards at the bottle, confused. "Right you are." He slurred, tossing the bottle to the other side of the couch drunkenly.

"How much have you drank?" Rachel asked, undecided whether she should be amused or concerned.

"Um, I lost count somewhere between 6 and too many." Tony mumbled, bringing the cocoa to his lips. "This is some cocoa, Bambi—you learn this at Barista Academy?"

"Bambi?" Rachel repeated with a laugh.

Tony swallowed the cocoa thickly, gesturing to her eyes with his fingers. "It's the eyes. You kinda look like a deer caught in headlights ninety-percent of the time. Don't take it personally; I give everyone nicknames—that one's relatively tame."

"Gee thanks, I guess. Though I'm not quite sure what to think about the Disney names—Belle, Sleeping Beauty, now Bambi . . . " Rachel rolled her eyes (to which Tony merely shrugged in response) and quietly looked down at her mug, pausing for a relative second before she spoke again; "My mum used to make it me all the time, when I couldn't sleep, after . . ."—Rachel hesitated—". . . after a vision. I guess it's a habit that has just . . . stuck." She finished with a lame shrug.

Tony stared at her for a long moment. "What did you see?"

Rachel opened her mouth to speak. "A battle." Rachel answered aloofly. Tony tensed, his expression darkening. "I didn't see anything specific. I woke up too soon." Rachel lied. Something in her brain was telling her not to mention what had really happened in her vision. "I . . . I don't want to talk about it right now." Rachel decidedly whispered.

Tony exhaled loudly through his nose, before quietly taking a sip of his cocoa. After a while, he spoke; "Well, I dreamt me and Pepper had a _kid_." Tony finally said. "I woke up"—Tony hiccupped—"and I thought it was real."

"You . . . don't want kids?" Rachel asked, trying to get a sense of Tony's drunken train of thoughts.

Tony pulled his shoulders up and down exasperatedly. "As Pepper says, if I wanted kids, I never would have done this." Tony tapped his chest three times. Rachel looked downwards to the blue glow that emitted from his grey pullover tee. "I had a rubbish father. I _hated _him. He was never there—it was always SHIELD this, SHIELD that. And when he was there, we argued about _everything. _And because of this, I would never be there too." Tony pointed to his reactor once more.

"You're not your father." Rachel spoke softly.

Tony hummed. "But I am this. I am my suits. I am Iron Man."

"Is that so bad? After all, if you were never Iron Man, thousands of people may not be here today."

"I don't know anymore." Tony took a swig of the cocoa, leaning back in the couch.

Rachel looked down at the mug in her hands, watching the steam swirl from the mug, into the air. She couldn't help but think that this was a side of Tony Stark that not very many people had seen before. Admittedly, many people had seen Tony drunk—but uncertain? Insecure? Rachel doubted it very much.

"What were your parents like?" Tony blurted, out of the blue.

Rachel blinked, slightly taken aback by the question. "Nice." Rachel whispered. "Kind. Loving. Perhaps a little too much." Tony raised his brows in question. "Any other sane parent would have cast their child aside if they had to deal with what I put them through. Evidentially, their sheer determination to be by my side is what led to their deaths." Rachel nodded firmly, the faces of her parents flashing before her eyes. When Rachel thought of her parents, she would usually remember them from happier memories—as those were the ones she knew she had to cherish—but this time, it was their cold lifeless faces staring up at her that flashed before her eyes.

"How old were you?"

Rachel exhaled. "Thirteen years old, give or take. I had been cooped up inside labs since I was young, birthdays became a blur."

"Twenty-one." Tony answered. "Doesn't matter what age you are when it happens, it sucks."

"Yep." Rachel responded slowly, nodding her head.

There was a long, tense silence between them until one of them spoke again.

"Well, this dead-parents bonding _thing_ has been great 'n all, but I have a stone to find." Tony pulled himself to his feet, wobbling slightly in his footing.

"How about you go to bed instead of to the lab?" Rachel suggested. "You don't look in the fit state to be walking, let alone searching for a stone." Rachel said with a cocked eyebrow.

Tony validated her point, by stumbling once more, only this time he stumbled into her. Rachel reached forward to grab his clothed shoulder, only to miss and clasp her hand around his bare forearm where the t-shirt sleeve met with skin.

Rachel inhaled sharply, as her fingers touched bare skin, and suddenly the image of Tony drunkenly stumbling towards her disappeared and the shapes and visions of Tony Stark's future began to form before her eyes. In much similar fashion to Steve, she saw flashes of his future, only things were different; she saw Tony on a lone planet, not of Earth, with faces she did not recognise apart from one—Spiderman—and their battle with Thanos, that ended in their defeat. It wasn't Thanos that Rachel found herself focusing on, however, it was a man—an apparently dark-haired American man, judging by his accent, accept it was dressed in strange attire with a red cape and deep blue robes. And around his neck, was an eye pendent and in the middle of the eye was a gleaming green stone. The Time Stone.

Tony's future continued to flash before her eyes, she saw Tony, older, with a young child—_a daughter_—and also dressed in the same white suit she had seen Steve wear as they prepared to travel back in time. And then eventually, she saw Tony on the battlefield—the same battlefield as the one in her vision—struggling with Thanos as the alien regained the stones. Rachel watched on in horror as Thanos snapped his fingers with triumph, except nothing happened, until Tony stepped forward—each stone rested upon his suit-hand. The words "_I Am Iron Man_", escaped his lips, before his fingers clasped together and snapped. Rachel continued to watch on in shock as Tony fell to the ground, burnt and ashen, on his deathbed, taking his final breath.

Rachel gasped as the vision disappeared, her present day surroundings returning to her. She could now see a very confused and shaken looking Tony Stark now placed on the other side of the room by Vision. Pepper Potts and Rhodey were in her peripheral vision, speaking in concerned voices.

"Rachel, are you OK? What do you need? Do you need a doctor?" Rachel moaned in response to Pepper's call, looking around her slowly. Rachel realised she was now lying horizontally across the couch, she reached up to touch the skin underneath her nose with her hand, pulling it away moments later to see it was covered in blood. "Maybe we should call Fury or Coulson. They said to call if she had another episode." Rachel heard Pepper say to Rhodey.

"I-I'm fine." Rachel weakly responded, heaving herself upwards, with difficulty into a sitting position.

"Honey, you don't look fine-" Pepper began to protest, but was interrupted by a voice across the room.

"What did you see?" Tony spoke. "You saw my future, what did you see? _What did you see?_" his voice became desperate by the end, the liquor running through his veins making him speak louder and more slurred than he usually would.

Rachel looked around the room awkwardly. "I-I-I. . ."

It was Vision that came to her aid; "I suggest we leave these questions to the morning, after Miss James has rested and we are—_all—_in a better frame of mind, don't you think Mr Stark?"

-:-

**2018**

San Francisco, California

-:-

Scott Lang nervously glanced at Hope's side for what felt like the hundredth time in the past minute, as they were lead through a dark empty warehouse. Fury, Coulson and Hill followed closely behind, none of them entirely sure where they were being taken to but none raised a voice in question.

"So,"—Scott spoke lightly, breaking the silence—"How've you been?" he began with desperate hope to spark conversation.

Hope didn't turn to acknowledge him, or slow her pace. "Busy, y'know, for someone trying to avoid the government." Hope dryly answered, her eyes strained ahead as she strode. The sounds of their footsteps against the cool, damp flooring echoed throughout the empty warehouse.

Scott swallowed thickly, reaching to the collar of his tee, tugging awkwardly. Two years of thinking how he would apologise to Hope, for everything he had done, now was the time; "Listen, Hope, I'm so . . ."- Before his apology could be started, he was interrupted. Hope had stopped—Scott had to quickly halt his footing to refrain from walking right into her. Hope snapped her head sharply, her dark brown braid almost hitting Scott's face in the process, as she turned to look at him with her hard green eyes.

"If that is an apology about to leave your mouth, safe your breath to someone who wants to hear it." Hope glared before glancing back at the three SHIELD agents that observed the interaction. "Follow me." She jutted her chin sharply before turning on her feet and resuming her quick stride. Scott sighed, watching as Fury and Hill followed ahead—without a glance in Scott's direction. Coulson, however, lingered behind—clapping a hand on his shoulder and giving him a sympathetic look as if to say '_I'm sorry', _to which Scott returned with a defeated shrug and shake of his head, before they following after the others.

"As much as we aren't grateful for your time, Ms Pym, but what the change of mind?" Fury spoke as the continued to stride through the abandoned warehouse.

Hope held up her hand, bringing the small group to a halting stop, as they neared the end of the warehouse—near the large doors that were open. Hope silently looked downwards; the four adults followed her gaze to see what appeared to be a small car figurine. Hope then turned to Fury, to answer his question. "I heard what you said about the stone,"—Hope said firmly—"You weren't the first person to approach us about what my Dad had been inventing."

Fury visibly tensed, looked to Hill and Coulson, before turning back to Hope. "Who . . . Stark?"

Hope scoffed with the roll of her eyes, fishing a small remote from her suit. One click of the remote, the small figurine car had expanded to a full-sized estate car. Hope opened the door and gestured for them to get in wordlessly, as she spoke; "About a month ago, we received an anonymous letter—how, we have no idea, considering we were in the middle of nowhere—explaining that the machine we were creating to go to the Quantum Realm could be—and will be—used for something far more important." Hope paused. "_And_ to suspect a surprise visit from SHIELD. I never believed a word of it . . . until you mentioned the stones and time machine, everything the letter warned us off." Hope ended, carefully eying Fury as she finished.

"Who was the letter from?" Hill asked.

"Like I said, it was anonymous." Hope dryly responded, looking at the SHIELD agent with slight annoyance. "But the writer did sign off with some sort of codename."

"Which was?" Fury pushed.

"The Oracle."

**A/N: Thoughts and predictions so far? What do you guys think about the switching of perspectives—would you prefer it if I stuck to it being Rachel POV led? Personally, I'm finding it quite fun switching back and forwards, writing about different characters, but it will be great to know your view as a reader :) **


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary:** What if Captain Marvel wasn't the only secret Nick Fury had kept from the world? In 2001, Nick Fury encounters a girl with an extraordinary power to see the future. Now, the threat of Thanos looms closer, maybe Rachel James is the only one with the power to stop it.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Everything, apart from my OC, belongs to Marvel.

**Author's Note: **Hello! Good morning, Good afternoon or Good evening at whatever time you're reading this. I'm back after 2 months – totally didn't plan for it to be so long, so apologies for the wait! Thank you as always for the lovely positive feedback! It's always so touching when I see another alert pop-up to say someone has favourited/followed/left a review on the story even after 2 months since the last update! All the reviews are so lovely, and it's great to hear what you think is going to happen on the story :)

Side note/update on the pairings after my previous A/N - still undecided, but I have decided it won't be anytime soon that Rachel will be "pairing" with anyone. I'm happy developing her relationships/friendships with all the MCU characters first. We'll see where the road takes us shall we?

-:-

**Chapter Six**

**-:-**

**2018**

Barton Residence, Missouri

-:-

On a cool spring-night, Clint led the four fugitive superheroes into the old, red barn several yards from the house where his family slept, oblivious, through the night.

"Whatever's going on, it better be big for turning up here of all places. I don't know whether to be annoyed or glad to see you." Clint muttered, casting one last look out at the night; before he pulled the barn door to, but kept it open enough to let the dim moonlight seep through, casting dark and light shapes around the space. "I hope you understand the risk you are putting my family in by being here." He turned to look at his colleagues—no, _friends_—with careful apprehension. Slowly, he watched Wanda, Sam and Natasha look between themselves and finally Steve.

Slowly Steve nodded. "We do. I'm sorry, Clint, but there was no choice." Clint wasn't quite sure if it was the harsh moonlit shadows cast over his face, or the toll two years of being a fugitive finally taken hold, but the Steve Rogers that stood before him looked different. _Maybe it was the missing shield, _he thought to himself, _or the beard, _but Clint Barton didn't feel like he was looking at the Captain America he, and the whole world, once knew.

"We're going to need you." Natasha added. Clint observed the way she cradled her torso, a physical action that Clint knew to mean vulnerability in his friend. Like Steve, Natasha's appearance was different; her infamous red hair was replaced with a blunt, platinum cut. No doubt to help her remain unrecognised amongst crowds of people. Wanda and Sam, however, looked the same—but their faces were not as well known as Steve or Natasha, which gave them leeway.

Clint jutted his chin and crossed his arms over his muscular chest. "OK,"—he slowly responded—"Is this bigger than Berlin?" There was a shift of gazes as Berlin was mentioned.

"Yes." Natasha nodded solemnly.

Interest peaked, Clint furrowed his brow. "Ultron?"

"Much, much bigger." Wanda answered, in her Eastern-European drawl, and tremor to her voice. Clint could see a sadness and desperation in her eyes that he had not seen since her brother's death. Surprisingly, he watched as Natasha—the closest to the copper-haired woman—places a comforting hand on her shoulder. Wanda quickly turned her head away, the moonlight reflecting off the tears that were beginning to swell in her eyes. He looked to the others, noting the uncomfortable, tense stances they all held.

"Alright." Clint slowly answered. "Get me up to speed, Cap."

Clint listened as Steve retold everything that had come to light over the space of just days, silently. Every so often, he would move his gaze from Steve's steely blue eyes, to carefully observe the reactions of the others; he could visibly see the way they flinched at various points through Steve's speech, even through the dark shadows of the barn. When Vision's name was mentioned, Clint's eyes moved to Wanda, watching how her body curled over itself and her head hung low; and he acknowledged how Sam and Natasha, both seemed to glance at her in worry, before redirecting their gazes elsewhere. Clint had always known there was an unexpected friendship between Vision and Wanda, however now he was beginning to wonder if it had—somehow—developed into more.

"So you see why we're here now?" Sam said, breaking the silence that had filled the room after Steve finished.

Clint, who had somehow managed to find himself rested against his workbench the duration of listening to Steve, rubbed a heavy hand across his face—trying to regain some sense of feeling, yet he still felt numb. "What is her name?" Clint asked, slowly. "The psychic." He added.

The others shared a confused glance. "Rachel James." Steve answered. "Why? Do you know her?"

Clint felt his shoulders fall like dead weight had been dropped from above, exhaling deeply. "Yeah, I knew her."

-:-

**2007**

SHIELD Headquaters, Undisclosed Location

-:-

In a windowless, grey lobby bustling with brisk people dressed in suits and lab coats alike, Agent Phil Coulson enters the large space—his eyes keenly moving around the room, but struggled to capture the person he was looking for. His once relaxed eyes, squinted as he began to search harder, surveying face-after-face; it was only several minutes later, that he spotted a figure of a man leaning against the wall with one bent leg, watching the crowds from the shadows. Coulson fought the urge the smile and headed towards the light brown-haired man.

As expected, the man noticed him approach from several feet away.

"Clint Barton?" Coulson said, with an outstretched hand in greeting.

The man pulled the wooden pick from his mouth and reached out, grasping his hand in a tight, firm handshake. Looking at Clint Barton, he drew average in height—an inch or so smaller than Coulson in-fact—but for what he lacked in height, he certainly made up for in strength.

"Nice grip." Coulson commented as he pulled his hand away. "I can see why special ops were reluctant to let you go—it took me a while to spot you." Coulson smiled, gesturing with a hand for Clint Barton to follow him, taking them in the direction where Coulson had appeared. Barton didn't respond, instead continuing to observe his surroundings. Over the last few days, Coulson had carefully evaluated Barton's file, who through his successful time with special ops, he gained the nickname 'Hawkeye' for his detailed observation, and ability to shoot—and never miss—from high, long distances.

"This way." Coulson led Barton down two corridors off from the lobby, through one secretarial office, and another corridor until they reached an office—Phil Coulson's office. A spacious room, the walls as grey as the rest of the building, and other than the furniture and office equipment, the room was sparce. The two men seated themselves behind the desk.

"Before we begin, I will need you to sign this." Coulson slid a piece of paper and pen across the desk.

Barton carefully glanced at the title, reading _Non-Disclosure Agreement _typed clearly at the top of the page_. _"I signed one of these when I enrolled." He said, in a bored monotone manner.

"Correct. A NDA is mandatory during the enrollment process. However, this NDA covers what I am about to tell you and any future work that you will carry out for us on this project." Coulson answered lightly.

Barton stared at him for a long, slow moment before exhaling loudly—reaching forward to lazily scribble his signature on the dotted line.

"Thank you." Coulson smiled, pulling the NDA away and placing it to the side. "As you probably will have been informed by your former handler, you will be placed on this project until it has been deemed that your duties have been fulfilled. For all intents and purposes, I am now your handler. You will report to only me, Director Fury and Secretary Pierce. Any information you will learn from here on out is classified. Your indiscretion is imperative. Understood?"

Barton nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good." Coulson answered, his shoulders visibly loosening, and passed him a file with 'CLASSIFIED' stamped clearly in red and bold across the front. "Your case."

Barton slowly pulled the file open, the first page containing the profile of a female—a young girl at that. Her name was Rachel James, 12 years of age. The photograph portrayed a young girl, with long dark brunette hair, rounded cheeks, and large expressive green eyes. Barton carefully ran his eyes down the profile, taking in the information;

**JAMES, RACHEL ELIZABETH**

**DOB: **09/01/1995

**LAST KNOWN ADDRESS: **1120 FIFTH AVENUE, COLUMBUS, OHIO

**PREVIOUS ADDRESS: **5060 PARK STREET, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

**SSN NO.: 678-20-1439**

**DOCUMENT CITIZENSHIP: **UNITED STATES

**PLACE OF BIRTH: **ROCHESTER, NEW YORK

**RACE: **CAUCASIAN

**GENDER: **FEMALE

**LANGUAGES****: **ENGLISH

**HAIR: **BROWN

**EYES: **GREEN

**NOTABLE MARKINGS: **NONE

**FAMILY: **MOTHER, SUSAN ELIZABETH JAMES (ALIVE). FATHER, GREGORY LINCOLN JAMES (ALIVE).

**ABILITIES:** [CLASSIFIED]

Barton paused, as everything beyond 'Family' had been redacted and stamped 'Classified' in red ink. "This file is redacted. There's barely any readable information." Barton noted, as he flipped through the following pages, which was a sea of blacked out lines, before shutting the file and tossing it back onto the desk. "What's the point in having me sign an NDA for information you could find from a phone book?" Barton snorted.

"Rachel James was brought to our attention a few years ago. Her existence was kept strictly classified to a small number of SHIELD employees and senior personnel. After a recent attack, we have no reason but to believe that we have had a breach within SHIELD itself. Every document was redacted with the intent to protect any further leak of classified information." Coulson solemnly explained.

"Attack?" Barton repeated. "What kind of attack are we dealing with?"

"A targeted attack led by HYDRA with the intent on kidnapping Ms. James."

Barton paused for a moment. "So you believe there is a SHIELD agent passing information to HYDRA." He assumed correctly. Coulson nodded slowly. "And you want me to find the snitch?"

"No." Coulson responded. "We want you to protect Ms. James from further HYDRA attacks."

Barton looked to down to the image of Rachel James, her youthful face staring back at him, before returning his gaze to Coulson. "What does this kid have that is important to protect?"

"Ms. James is . . . special." Coulson hesitated.

"Special how?" Barton prompted. Barton could clearly see the hesitation in his eyes. "If I'm going to protect this kid, I think I kind of need to know what I'm walking into."

Coulson nodded slowly. "Very well."

**-:-**

**2018**

Barton Residence, Missouri

-:-

Clint rubbed his hand across his stubbled cheek once more, before dropping it limply to his side. "Rachel was my first real mission with SHIELD." Clint said as he looked up to address the others—Steve, he could see, was looking at him more keenly than the others. "I was to protect her at all cost—even if it was against SHIELD themselves. She was just 12 at the time, but had already had too many close calls and brush-ins with HYDRA. By this point, Rachel and her parents had been taken to a safe house—I flew out almost immediately after I was assigned to the case."

"What happened?" Natasha asked, curious. Despite their closeness, Clint had never told Natasha the story of his first case—up until now, it had something he had never spoken of since.

Clint exhaled deeply. "I failed." Clint said, with a heavy shrug, tightness in his eyes as he looked to Natasha. "I was young and naïve; I never should have been put on the case." Clint shook his head. "It was late one night, I heard a noise—I went to investigate—but it was a decoy. I was ambushed by HYDRA. By the time I had fought them off, it was too late." Clint hung his head in shame.

"That doesn't sound like your fault."—Sam said—"That sounds to me that you were severely outnumbered and caught off guard."

"Outnumbered?"—Clint repeated—"Yes. Caught off guard? Not necessarily." Clint grunted. "Rachel had been difficult to get to sleep that night. Her parents had tried, many times, to get her to sleep but she wasn't going down. She was hysterical. Talking about men coming to the house to get us."—Clint cleared his throat deeply—"I should have known better; I should have taken them away the moment she said it, but I didn't. Before we had gotten to the safe house, SHIELD had pumped her with a number of drugs to keep her stable—it was hard to know what was a hallucination and what was a vision."

"Jesus." Natasha whispered. "What kind of stuff were they doing to her?"

Clint shook his head. "It's hard to say. I was never told what happened in the labs, but judging by the shape she was in when I arrived—it wasn't exactly ethical."

Wanda scoffed. "SHIELD—they are no better than HYDRA. Only HYDRA doesn't hide under sheep's clothing."

Steve interjected; "Hold on. We have to remember by this point HYDRA will have infiltrated SHIELD for a number of years. There's no saying who these people swore their allegiance to." Steve firmly answered, looking between them. "Clint, I'm sorry you weren't able to save Rachel. But look around, we have all failed in some way or another."—Wanda looked down as the episode in Lagos ran clear in everyone's minds—"When we're knocked down, there's no choice but to get back up and fight back. And you did that. And we need you to do that for us again."

Clint stared at Steve for several long minutes. "Let me get my things."

**-:-**

**2018**

Avengers Compound, Upstate New York

-:-

That night, after being assisted back to her bed by Pepper, Rachel drifted in and out of a restless sleep—sometimes her eyes would open with a snap as she re-watched Tony Stark's death replay before her eyes. Then she would spend several long moments staring up at the ceiling, catching her breath, before exhaustion lured her back and thus the cycle was repeated again and again until morning broke over the forest-horizon; sunlight seeped through the large glass windows into her room until, finally, it would then become too light to sleep.

However, despite this, Rachel didn't leave her bed. Firstly, due to the dull throbbing in her head, which always came after intense visions like the ones she had encountered touching Tony; and secondly, due to the fear of facing what was waiting for her outside those walls. How would she even begin to explain that she saw Tony Stark's death? She couldn't. And decidedly by the end of her internal stewing, tossing and turning, that she wouldn't. From experience she knew that trying to prevent someone's death, only caused ramifications and repercussions that were often worse. It was hard lesson Rachel had learnt long ago.

A soft knocking interrupted her internal affliction, causing her to sit up in her bed, grasping her covers. Moments later, Pepper Potts face appeared through the door. "I'm sorry, I didn't wake you did I?" Pepper asked, softly and apologetically. Rachel slowly shook her head, and carefully watched as Pepper slipped inside, carrying a tray in her hands. "I thought I would bring you some breakfast." Pepper gestured to the tray in her hands.

Rachel felt her shoulders drop slightly and she pushed herself back until she felt her back touch the headboard. "Thank you." her voice was croaky, leading her to awkwardly clear her throat, before she gratefully accepted the tray that Pepper placed before her. The tray was filled with an assortment of food and drinks—muffins, toasts, fruit, porridge, orange juice, coffee—that Rachel couldn't help but look at it with wide-eyed apprehension.

"Vision." Was Pepper's one-worded explanation, with a twinkle of amusement in her sea-green eyes. "For someone who doesn't have the need or ability to digest food, he is an attentive cook."

Rachel felt herself smile and shake her head. "It's lovely, thank you." Rachel reached forward for the coffee first; humming as she the warm liquid soothed and warmed her dry throat. She looked up as she felt the bed dip, to see Pepper perching herself on the bed beside her. Involuntarily, she felt herself tense. _Please don't ask me what I saw, _a small voice echoed in the back of her mind. She felt like a child again, in one of those lab rooms, as the doctors in lab coats began to poke and prod her.

"How are you?" was Pepper's first words.

"I'm fine." Rachel hoped she sounded convincing, aloof even as she concentrated on the muffin, picking at the blueberries.

"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?"

Rachel shrugged. "It depends what you're talking about; the visions—yes."

"I mean, how you reacted after Tony touched you." Pepper clarified.

Rachel paused for a long moment, biting her cheeks as she approached her next answer; "Sometimes." Rachel inhaled quietly. "It depends on the person—if a normal person were to touch me, it may have little affect on me; I would see their future in the blink of an eye, and be able to carry on as normal."

"But if a person like Tony or . . . Steve were to touch you?" Pepper carefully asked.

Rachel sighed, wondering internally who Pepper had spoken to—Coulson was her most immediate answer. "It's different. Their futures are entwined with large events that effect the outcome of the universe. Seeing their future can be too difficult for my body to cope. Hence . . . y'know—seizures, fainting and nosebleeds." Rachel waved her hand casually.

"What did you see?" Pepper asked.

Rachel finally looked up—seeing a depth of emotion behind her eyes (fear, worry, desperation) that was undoubtedly for Tony and his future. ". . ." Rachel hesitated. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you." _I don't want to tell you, _were Rachel's true thoughts.

Rachel watched, waiting for Pepper's protests, but was surprised when she nodded in response. "OK. Well, enjoy your breakfast." Pepper stood from her bed, running a hand down her cotton shirt. "Maria Hill called about an hour ago—Fury will be arriving in the next hour or so for a meeting with the others. Fury requested that you were present. Do you need anything?" Rachel shook her head. Pepper inhaled deeply. "OK. Just call if you need anything." She threw Rachel a tight smile, before she quietly left.

Rachel quietly watched Pepper disappear, and continued to watch the door after it had clicked shut for a long while. Rachel realised, without the words being spoken aloud, that Pepper Potts knew Tony Stark was going to die.

-:-

**2018**

Birin Zana, Wakanda

-:-

"Urr, Cap? Are you sure about these co-ordinates?"

From the back of the quinjet, Steve Rogers snapped the compass shut—the black-and-white face of Peggy Carter disappearing as he did so—and approached the front of the ship, where Natasha and Sam both sat behind the console, navigating the jet. Sam and Natasha were both looking between Steve and the scenes before them in apprehension; as per the co-ordinates that Steve had proved them as they left Barton's ranch in Missouri, the jet was taking them straight towards a mountain of Wakandan trees and wilderness.

"I'm sure. Keep going." Steve responded.

Sam glanced at the solider over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in a look of disbelief and incredulous, before finally exhaling and slowly turning forwards once again. "Fine,"—Sam muttered lightly—"But I swear to God, if you're wrong and I die, you're paying for my funeral, man." Sam shook his head, grasping the handles, pushing downwards to surge the jet forwards. By now, Wanda and Clint had joined them at the cockpit, and were now watching the land approach them in rapid speed.

"We're going to crash" Wanda muttered, a red glow beginning to emit from her hands and glimmer in her eyes.

"Relax," Steve said, calmly. Wanda looked at him in disbelief. "Watch." Steve nodded forwards. Wanda turned her head back, just as the jet began to pass through the hologram. The thick trees on mountainous land disappeared, suddenly revealing a very different—and more spectacular—view. "Welcome to Birin Zana. Capital of Wakanda." Steve reached down, clapping Sam's shoulder with a slightly smug smile on his face.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah—whatever, man. A warning would have been nice."

"It's quite something." Natasha said from beside Sam, as they gazed down at the beautiful city before them. "Where do you want us to park this, Cap?"

Steve glanced downwards, pointing at a spot on the ground, not far from where the lake stopped at the centre of the city. The five adults were silent as they lowered the quinjet, effortlessly dropping it to a smooth landing on the ground. As they shut off the engines, Steve could see guards, Dora Milaje, moving towards them in their usual red and bronze armour, armed with spears. From the tall building a few yards from them, T'Challa exited—heading in their direction.

"Damn, those women look _fierce_." Sam commented, as he watched the guards that flocked T'Challa's side as they advanced towards them.

Natasha snickered from beside him as she unbuckles her belt; "I wouldn't recommend getting on their bad side, I'll give you that."

"Come on." Steve exited the quinjet, urging the others to follow behind.

"Steve Rogers," The King greeted the solider, with a welcome shake of a hand. "While I am glad to see you, your visit is unexpected." T'Challa glanced from Steve Rogers to look at the other four soliders, nodding his head in greeting to each of them. "Why do I feel like this is not a social call?" T'Challa said his expression sobering as he looked back at Steve.

"That's because it's not." Steve responded.

T'Challa nodded slowly. "You better come in then."

-:-

**2018**

Avengers Compound, Upstate New York

-:-

Sometime after midday, Rachel emerged from her room, freshly showered and dressed in a pair of jeans and a grey sweater. She nervously tugged at her damp hair as she padded down the large, open hallways—that were now bright with sunlight, contrasting to how they were last night. She followed the same route as last night to the kitchen/communal area. As she approached, she heard the mutter of conversation, which burnt out as soon as she stepped inside, making her presence known. Rhodey and Vision all stood at the kitchen island.

"Ms James, I am pleased to see you've made a full recovery." Vision greeted her eloquently.

Rachel smiled and held up an awkward hand. "Please, call me Rachel. Thank you for the breakfast—it was delicious."

There was a moment pause, as Rachel awkwardly slipped herself into one of the barstools across from Rhodey. It was Rhodey that broke the silence after several long moments; "Pepper mentioned you wouldn't tell her what you saw when Tony touched you." Rhodey reached forward, clasping his hands together. "I . . . understand your hesitation to tell Pepper, but I wonder if it's something you'd like to tell us."

Rachel looked downwards in hesitation.

"If there's something important that is going to happen to something, _someone, _that we can prevent—we should know." Rhodey urged.

Rachel opened her mouth to speak, feeling the urging gaze of Rhodey and the calm gaze of Vision upon her, however she was interrupted as a presence entered the room; "Stop hounding the psychic. Frankly, I don't need to know which One Direction band member will be my future husband. I already know it will, obviously, be Niall."—Tony calmly strode into the room, dressed in his usual band tee and jeans. Gone was the distressed, drunk Tony had encountered last night, replaced with the hubristic, collected Tony Stark everyone infamously knew—"In fact, BuzzFeed already told me, see?" Tony Stark held up his phone.

"You're looking better." Rhodey remarked.

Tony Stark shrugged. "Hair of the dog, my friend."

Rhodey sighed. "Tony, we spoke about your drinking . . ."

"I was joking." Tony exasperated. "Now, come along children, Fury is making his grand entrance. It appears he has brought an entourage." Tony smirked at Rachel, who had continued to stare at him slightly uncomfortably, unsure what to expect when she finally interacted with Tony after the night before. A part of Rachel was grateful that Tony didn't seem to want to know what she had seen in her vision.

Rachel followed behind Rhodey and Vision as they were led out of the kitchen by Tony. Rachel muttered her thanks to Tony as he held the door open for her, keeping her head down, as she passed through. Instead of walking ahead to catch up with Rhodey and Vision, who were some feet ahead, she was surprised when Tony fell in step with her small strides.

"Thank you,"—Tony said, to Rachel's surprise, which made her face contort in confusion—"For not telling Pepper whatever you saw in . . ."—Tony cleared his throat uncomfortably—"y'know my future." Rachel glanced at the superhero to see that he was staring straight ahead, awkwardly sniffing and stuffing his hands into his slacks pockets. "Pepper is already pretty wound up about the wedding n' all, and truthfully, I don't think I could stand a _worried _Pepper on top of that. She'll probably get the idea of jetting to Vegas to elope or something . . . which, actually, isn't a bad idea." Tony rambled, moving his head to the side in re-consideration, before shrugging. "Ah, but we've already paid for the caterers."

"You're welcome, I think." Rachel answered after Tony's ramblings subsided, however her mind flashed back to Pepper's face as she left her bedroom that morning—a look of depredation that made Rachel conclude that, without saying anything, she knew of Tony's fate. After a moment's pause she added: "You haven't asked me what I saw, again."

Tony shrugged once. "I . . . contemplated it. Believe me, Vis had to physically phase through me—not a nice feeling by the way, I felt totally violated—to stop me from going into your room. By the way, that red robot is somehow very attached to you in the one day he has met you."—Rachel glanced towards Vision, feeling a pang to her heart. _Don't get attached, _she thought to herself, _It will only hurt more in the long run_—"But then I realised, if you did tell me, I would probably do something stupid and selfish to make sure whatever happens didn't happen."

Rachel looked at Tony in respect. "That's very wise." As she spoke, they were coming to a slow halt by a long glass wall that looked into what appeared to be a conference room. "And thank you. For not asking."

Tony looked away and nodded before heading into the conference room. Rachel followed slowly behind, sticking to the edges of the room, unsure what or where she should place herself until Rhodey urged her to take a seat.

Rachel placed herself next to Vision, who smiled at her warmly. Rachel returned the smile, but unconsciously found her gaze flickering to the yellow gem glaring from his forehead. Eventually, Rachel had to pull her gaze away, choosing to look down at the hands clasped on the table before her. Her staring had not gone unnoticed by Vision who carefully grazed a red finger over the stone, expression visibly tightened.

"Stark." Fury greeted as he entered the room. He looked around the room, his gaze resting on Rachel, nodding his head in greeting. Rachel returned the nod, before turning her gaze to watch Maria Hill and Phil Coulson step through.

Phil shook hands with Tony and Rhodey before making his way to Rachel and Vision. "Pepper mentioned to us on the way in you had another episode." Coulson's eyes were warm with concern, his hand clasping her arm, as he sat himself down in the chair next to her. "Are you OK?" the tone of voice as he spoke to her was low enough to not draw the attention of the others, bar Vision who was in close proximity to hear what they were discussing.

Rachel nodded. "I'm fine." She murmured, giving him what she hoped to be the most convincing look.

"We'll talk later." Coulson urged.

Rachel sighed, already not looking forward to the questions Coulson was going to ask her about what she saw.

"Stark, I believe you know Hank Pym."

Rachel looked over Coulson's shoulder as she heard Fury introduce someone to Tony. Rachel saw a man in his 70s, dressed in a tweed jacket, and frameless glasses approach Tony. Just slightly behind him, was Hank Pym's only daughter, Hope, who scanned the room with a careful eye. It was undoubted that neither Pym were comfortable to be here; Unlike Scott Lang, AKA Ant-Man, who was greeting Rhodey with a hug like they were old-friends.

Rachel continued to watch as Tony Stark and Hank Pym stood feet apart, making no movement to shake one another's hand. "Know of him? Hank Pym was all I heard my Dad complain about throughout the 80s." Tony retorted with a snort, gazing at Hank Pym over his tinted glasses, notorious smirk in place. "Hm. Smaller than I expected. Is that a side-effect of sniffing too much Pym particles over the years? Hey, watch out Bug-Man, you could have the same fate." Tony called over his shoulder to Scott.

Hank Pym moved a slow eye up and down Tony, before finally speaking, with his hands calmly clasped in front of him. "The same self-righteous attitude, air of arrogance, and disregard for anyone other than yourself as your father. Father like son, as they say."

Tony hummed, moving his head from side-to-side in thought. "I think my suits say otherwise."

"Your father used to think the same thing about his work on the super-solider serum, but look where that left him." Hank Pym retorted.

The room watched as Tony's face visibly darkened.

"Let's stop now,"—Fury intervened—"Before you finish the job this alien has even started. Maria—have you got through to Wakanda?" Fury turned to Maria who was working on the screens, pressing buttons, ignoring the situation going down between Stark and Pym.

"Just patching them through now." Maria answered.

"Good. Everyone take their seats."

Rachel watched as people took their seats—observing how Tony Stark and the Pyms took the furthest away from each other, which coincidentally meant the Pyms were across from her. Rachel caught the eye of Hope Pym as the brunette sat down, the two shared the briefest of smile, though after Rachel looked away she still felt Hope's gaze upon her. Rachel turned her gaze to the end of the room, where an image was projected. Rachel recognised King T'Challa and Steve Rogers immediately from the foreground of the image.

"What is happening?" Rachel asked Coulson and Vision whom sat either side of her.

"I believe you call it a conference call." Vision answered.

Coulson corrected; "More of a strategy meeting, if you will."

Rachel nodded slowly.

"We are connected, sir." Maria addressed Fury, who stood at the front of the table.

"King T'Challa, thank you for being on this call. Steve, it's good to see you gained a new recruit."

Rachel's eyes slowly moved from behind Steve Rogers, where she could see Natasha, Sam, Wanda and . . . Rachel felt her body tense as she saw Clint Barton standing in the far right corner of the image, arms crossed over his chest, next to Wanda. Other than in visions, this was the first time Rachel had seen Clint Barton since the day her parents died. This was obviously a different Clint Barton to the one she knew those years ago; she didn't have to be a psychic to know a lot had changed for Barton in the 10 years that had passed since that day. Aware that they could probably also see Rachel and everyone else in the room, Rachel felt herself subconsciously sink further into her seat, cowering behind Vision's body who sat closest to the projected image.

At some point, Rachel felt a comforting hand resting on her clothed forearm. She looked to her left to see Coulson giving her a fatherly smile.

Rachel returned the smile, tensely. As she turned her head away, her eyes met with Hope Pym once again. Rachel's brows furrowed in confusion, to which Hope looked away slowly, leaving Rachel questioning the Pym's unexplained attention towards her.

"It's good to see you, Clint." Vision spoke smoothly. "The same goes to you, Steve, Natasha, Sam and Wanda." Rachel visibly noticed the change in Visions tone as he addressed the Scarlet Witch—it was softer, warmer.

"It's good to see you too, Vision." Steve answered. "Rhodey; you're looking good. Tony said you're walking again, I'm pleased to hear it."

From next to Stark, Rhodey nodded with a glimmer of a smile. "Thanks, Cap. I'm liking the beard." Steve awkwardly rubbed his bearded chin.

"Is everyone finished with the niceties?" Fury dryly asked. "I know there's a lot of unfinished business between a lot of you, but can we save it until _after _we have buried Thanos six feet under?" There was a mumble of agreement around the room. "Thank you." Fury empathised. "As you should all know by now, we are dealing with an impending threat against our plant and universe. We currently do not know when this alien called Thanos will reach us, but we have some ideas where it will be and we know what he is after." Fury paused, as he looked around the quiet room. "As it stands, two Infinity stones are on this planet—the Mind stone"—a number of people glance in Vision's direction—"and the Time stone. I think we can safely agree that we cannot let Thanos get either of these stones at all costs."

"Do we know the location of the Time stone?" T'Challa spoke over the intercom, smooth and calmly.

Fury's gaze turned to Stark, who dropped the hand he had been holding to his chin before that moment. "No. So far, it seems wherever this Time stone is, it's well hidden that even FRIDAY can't pick anything up."

Rachel saw a flash of a man in blue robes and a red cloak flash before her mind. "I . . . may be able to provide some help with this."—Rachel quietly interjected. Rachel tried not to cower back when she felt the gaze of everyone in the room turn to her—"When I touched Tony last night, I saw a man with the stone. He seemed to go by the name 'Strange'. It looked like he was guarding the stone."

"We need to find him. There's a chance he may have the stone right now." Steve spoke firmly.

"We'll get on it." Coulson answered. "Rachel, we'll need you to help identify this guy. Someone with the name Strange shouldn't be that hard to find."

Rachel nodded.

"Once we have the stone, we will need to find a secure location for the stone to be protected." Maria interjected.

T'Challa spoke again; "Bring it to Wakanda. We will keep it safe, and from what Captain Rogers has told me, they will be coming to us anyway." His eyes were hard as he spoke.

"What about your people?" Rhodey spoke.

"We will evacuate the city when the time comes." T'Challa calmly responded. "Now we know what is to come, we can prepare ourselves."

"But what about Vis?" Wanda spoke, stepping forward. "We have to find a way to get the stone out of him before Thanos can get to him."

Rachel glanced downwards, the vision of Thanos tearing the stone from his head flashing before her eyes, clenching her jaw.

"We may be able to help with that too,"—T'Challa said, calmly—"My sister Shuri is very gifted, all of Wakanda's technology is thanks to her. I'm sure she would find a way to remove the stone."

Stark sighed exasperatedly. "I mean no disrespect to your sister, Your Highness"—Hank Pym let out a disgruntled snort from across the room—"But that may not be so easy. Vision's entire infrastructure is hard-wired from that stone. No offence, bud"—Tony Stark, waved a hand in Vision's direction—"But the reason Vision is alive is because of that stone."

"But it also doesn't have to be the reason he dies, Tony." Steve retorted, even through the projected image, you could see the way his steely blue eyes became irate.

Tony's jaw twitched. It didn't take much to notice the shift in the air as tension fell over them like a thick fog. "May I interject?" Vision's melodic voice spoke. "I propose the stone remains with me, for safe-keeping, until the time comes. Thor created me with the intention that I would protect the stone, after all."

"But that could be too late." Sam Wilson spoke.

Vision nodded slowly. "Then so be it. I have come to peace with my future."

"Vis . . ." Wanda's voice croaked through the intercom.

"But the future hasn't happened yet, there is always time to change it, like we're doing right now." Steve argued.

Vision smiled sadly. "We are at war, Captain, loss of life is inevitable." From across the room, Tony—who appeared to be lost in thought at that point—looked up at Vision at his words, something it seemed only Rachel seemed to observe as she glanced around the room. She, herself, felt the familiar pang to her chest as the words were spoken. _War, _it felt almost unjust word to use, yet in reality a war was what they were facing. Rachel glanced around the room, knowing that two were fated to die, whilst others would fall victim to The Snap, if he succeeded in getting the stones.

"Then I must insist you join us in Wakanda, for your protection." said T'Challa.

Vision nodded again. "Thank you; your hospitality will be most appreciated."

There was a moment's pause before Fury spoke again; "We have also gained some new knowledge, that as of right now only a few of us in this room know, which brings me to the reason Hank and Hope Pym is with us today." Fury gestured to Hank Pym. "Through his work on the Quantum Realm, Hank Pym will create a way to travel through time." Fury paused as he let his words sink into everyone's mind.

"I'm sorry—_what_?" Rhodey repeated. "Did I just hear that correctly—this guy"—Rhodey pointed to Hank Pym—"created a time-machine?"

"_Will _create a time-machine." Fury corrected. "As of right now, it hasn't been completed."

"But we intend to make one right—doesn't that solve our problem? We can just go back in time and stop every bad thing from happening." Rhodey spoke.

Scott Lang spoke for the first time; "Not without consequences. Dude, have you never seen _any_ film on time-travel?"

"We should make it, but use it as a last resort. Thanks to Rachel, we're already at an upper hand, here." Steve responded.

"I hate to say it, but I agree with Capsicle on this one." Tony spoke up. "I say we rally our forces and destroy him before he can even enter the atmosphere."

There was a number of nods and murmurs of agreement across the room. "There is one problem,"—Rachel spoke up—"Thanos will already have three stones when he arrives at Earth. He will be _very _powerful."

"Then we stop him before he has the chance to use them." Steve replied firmly.

Rachel sat back in her chair, droning out the voices around her, a numbing sensation seeping down her body. Somehow, she knew, they were still going to lose.

-:-

**A/N: Andddd… Chapter 6 done. Phew. And what a long one this was to write, but I've been dipping in and out of it over the course of two months. Not an eventful chapter, but I'm all for the slow burn up to events. I really want to (try) to show the character development. **

**What do people think of the flash backs to the past about Rachel's past? There is a lot more around her back story that I'm not quite sure whether to include; I'm a bit worried it may be a separate story on it's own, and that it wouldn't belong in this story which is obviously about Endgame! Maybe I'll write a prequel after this done? **

**(Side Note) Hair of the Dog – I have NO idea if this is just a Brit thing, but its slang for having alcohol in the morning after a heavy drinking session the night prior haha! Thought I would make a note in-case there are any readers outside of the UK (where I'm from) that read it and think "WTH?!"**

**P.S – does anyone know if any good Beta's that don't mind a non-existent update schedule?! I'm thinking I could do with a bit of help, as after reading some of these long chapters back, I've noticed some errors that I must have missed when I go back and read through! PM if you do :)**


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